Berkley Center

Christine A. Gustafson is associate professor of politics and associate dean for faculty development and assessment at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. Her research interests include the international political economy of development, Brazilian political economy, theories of culture and institutional change, and the politics of religion.

Alynna J. Lyon is a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire. Her research focuses on international organizations, the United Nations, U.S. foreign policy, and peacekeeping.

Paul Christopher Manuel is a research fellow at the Berkley Center and a local affiliate of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) at Harvard University. At Georgetown University, he is also an affiliated professor in both the Department of Government and the McCourt School of Public Policy. Manuel’s scholarship has contributed to democratization literature in Spain and Portugal, with a focus on religion and politics. He has authored or co-authored twelve books and numerous scholarly articles, including Faith-Based Organizations and Social Welfare: Associational Life and Religion in Africa and Latin America (2024, with Miguel Glatzer and Christine Gustafson); Faith-Based Organizations and Social Welfare: Associational Life and Religion in Contemporary Eastern Europe (2020, with Miguel Glatzer); Faith-Based Organizations and Social Welfare: Associational Life and Religion in Contemporary Western Europe (2019, with Miguel Glatzer); and Religion and Politics in a Global Society: Comparative Perspectives from the Portuguese-Speaking World (2012, edited with Alynna Lyon and Clyde Wilcox). He is currently working on a second edition of his edited volume, Pope Francis as a Global Actor: Where Politics and Theology Meet (2026, with Alynna Lyon and Christine Gustafson). He has also previously taught at the School of Public Affairs at American University, at Mount St. Mary’s University, and at Saint Anselm College. He holds a B.A. and M.A. from Boston University, an M.T.S. from the School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College (formerly the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts), and a Ph.D. in government from Georgetown University.

Mathew N. Schmalz is an associate professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. Schmalz is an expert in Catholicism in the non-Western world; new religious movements; and religion and politics in India and Pakistan. Schmalz has been a panelist for On Faith and writes regularly for the Boston Globe website Crux. He has published opinion pieces in the Washington Post, Commonweal Magazine, The National Catholic Reporter, the Providence Journal, and the Telegram & Gazette, and he has provided expert commentary to USA Today, the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC's Good Morning America, Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, NPR, and U.S. News & World Report, among others. His work has also appeared in the Best American Spiritual Writing series. He holds a Ph.D. in the History of Religions from the University of Chicago.