Dr. Brandon Vaidyanathan is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at The Catholic University of America. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame. His research examines the cultural dimensions of religious, commercial, medical, and scientific institutions and has been widely published in peer-reviewed journals. He is the author of Mercenaries and Missionaries: Capitalism and Catholicism in the Global South (Cornell University Press, 2019) and co-author of Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the World Really Think About Religion (Oxford University Press, 2019). His ongoing research examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on faith communities and on scientists, as well as the role of aesthetics in scientific practice and institutions.

Books

Vaidyanathan, Brandon. 2019. Mercenaries and Missionaries: Capitalism and Catholicism in the Global South (Cornell University Press, 2019)

Ecklund, Elaine Howard, David R. Johnson, Brandon Vaidyanathan, Kirstin Matthews, Steven Lewis, Robert Thomson, and Di Di. 2019. Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the World Really Think About Religion (Oxford University Press, 2019)

Articles

Jacobi, Christopher Justin, and Brandon Vaidyanathan. 2021. Racial differences in anticipated COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among religious populations in the US. Vaccine.

Frankham, Emma, Christopher Jacobi, and Brandon Vaidyanathan. 2021. Race, trust in police, and mental illness crisis support, Contexts (Fall 2021).

DeAngelis, Reed T., Gabriel A. Acevedo, Brandon Vaidyanathan, and Christopher G. Ellison. 2021. Coping with an Evil World: Contextualizing the Stress‐Buffering Role of Scripture Reading. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

Kirstin R. W. Matthews, Erin Yang, Steven W. Lewis, Brandon R. Vaidyanathan & Monica Gorman. 2020. International scientific collaborative activities and barriers to them in eight societies, Accountability in Research.

Vaidyanathan, Brandon. 2020. “How minority religion can shape corporate capitalism: An emergentist account and empirical illustration.” Business and Society 59(5)

Salazar, Esmeralda Sánchez, Brandon Vaidyanathan, Elaine Howard Ecklund, Adriana Garcia. 2019. “Challenging Evolution in Public Schools: Race, Religion, and Attitudes towardTeaching Creationism.” Socius.

Vaidyanathan, Brandon, Simranjit Khalsa, and Elaine Howard Ecklund. 2018. “Naturally ambivalent: Religion’s role in shaping environmental action.” Sociology of Religion 79(4): 472-494.

Johnson, David R., Brandon Vaidyanathan, and Elaine Howard Ecklund. 2018. “Structural Strain in Science: Organizational Context, Career Stage, Discipline, and Role Composition.” Sociological Inquiry 88(1):5-31.

Vaidyanathan, Brandon. 2018. “The Politics of the Liturgy in the Archdiocese of Bangalore.” Pp. 180-205 in: Catholics in the Vatican II Era: Local Histories of a Global Event. Edited by Kathleen Sprows Cummings, Timothy Matovina, and Robert Orsi. Cambridge University Press.

Vaidyanathan, Brandon, Simranjit Khalsa, and Elaine Howard Ecklund. 2016. “Gossip as social control?: Informal sanctions on ethical violations in scientific workplaces.” Social Problems 63(4):554-572.

Vaidyanathan, Brandon, David Johnson, Pamela Prickett, and Elaine Howard Ecklund. 2016. “Rejecting the Conflict Narrative: American Jewish and Muslim Views on Science and Religion.” Social Compass 63(4):478-496.

Vaidyanathan, Brandon, Michael Strand, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Meghan Davis, Amanda Varela, and Thomas Buschman. 2016. “Causality in Contemporary American Sociology: An Empirical Assessment and Critique.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 46(1):3-26.

Offutt, Steven, LiErin Probasco, and Brandon Vaidyanathan. 2016. “Religion, Poverty and Development.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 55(2):207-215.

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