Berkley Center

Martien A. Halvorson-Taylor is associate professor and associate chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia (UVA). Together with Kurtis Schaeffer, Halvorson-Taylor directs the Global Religion Lab at UVA. An award-winning teacher, she directs UVA’s Pavilion Seminars Program for the university’s advanced students, who engage in vital questions of ethics, human nature, politics, aesthetics, nature, law, space, and survival. She developed and continues to direct UVA’s joint global humanities summer program with the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology. She holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern languages and civilizations from Harvard University and is a published scholar of the Hebrew Bible and its interpretation with particular focus on the exilic period.