Melissa Wilde Named Davidson Kennedy Professor in the College

Melissa Wilde has been named Davidson Kennedy Professor in the College. Having joined the Penn community in 2006, Wilde served as the Undergraduate Chair in the Department of Sociology from 2013 to 2017 and is currently serving as Department Chair.

Wilde’s research focuses on how religious groups respond to societal change. Wilde’s most recent book, Birth Control Battles (University of California Press 2020), examines how support for contraception among America’s most prominent religious groups was tied to white supremacist views of race, immigration, and manifest destiny.

An award-winning sociologist and mentor, Wilde has received numerous honors from the American Sociological Association and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, including the Charles Tilly Best Article Award in Comparative-Historical Sociology. She recently received the Dean’s Award for Mentorship of Undergraduate Research from the School of Arts & Sciences. She was President of the Association for the Sociology of Religion in 2014.

Wilde’s current research includes a survey project on religion and politics, an archive of early 20th-century articles, and the digitalization of historical census data on American religious groups. She has received grant support from numerous sources, including the National Science Foundation, the Louisville Institute, and Penn’s University Research Foundation.

Across the Penn community, Wilde has served in many roles. She is the Associate Faculty Director of Penn’s Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society.  She has served on the SAS Personnel, Graduate Council of the Faculties, Faculty Council on Access and Academic Support, Faculty Senate Executive Committee, and is currently serving on the Provost’s Advisory Committee on Community Engaged Scholarship and as University Council Moderator.

The Davidson Kennedy Professorship was established in 1994 by the late Josephine Rankin Kennedy in memory of her husband. The professorship supports a distinguished faculty member who displays excellence in teaching, innovation in curriculum development, service to students, and first-rate scholarship.