Robert Woodberry

Robert Woodberry is an associate professor of Political Science at the University of Singapore. Woodberry is also director of the Project on Religion and Economic Change (PREC). His research analyzes the long-term roots of education, mass printing, economic development and democracy in former colonies. As part of PREC, he built a global, geo-spatial database of virtually all Protestant and Catholic missionary activity, education, and medical work from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. The database also includes detailed measures of colonial history, climate, terrain and geography. Woodberry will be focusing on the role of “conversionary Protestants” in promoting religious, social, economic, and political freedom around the world between the late 1700s and the late 1900s for the Christianity and Freedom Project at the Berkley Center.