Wallace B. Smith Tribute Lecturers
Nancy Ross is an associate professor and the department chair of the Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Department at Utah Tech University, where she has been teaching for 18 years. Her Ph D is in the history of art from the University of Cambridge, but her current research focuses on gender in the history and sociology of religion. Her forthcoming book, which will be published by the University of Illinois Press, is titled “Mormon Garments: Sacred and Secret” and examines the meaning and lived experiences of those who wear garments through the lenses of gender and belief. She is an ordained elder in Community of Christ and pastor of the Southern Utah congregation and still loves and claims her Mormon feminist community.
David J. Howlett is visiting assistant professor of religion at Smith College where he has taught since 2019. Born and raised in Independence, Missouri, David holds a PhD in religious studies (American religious history) from the University of Iowa. He is the author of Kirtland Temple: The Biography of a Shared Mormon Sacred Space (University of Illinois Press, 2014) and co-author of Mormonism: The Basics. David serves as a volunteer world church historian for Community of Christ and lives in Easthampton, Massachusetts with his wife, the Rev. Anna Woofenden, and their pre-school-age daughter, Jarena.
