Christopher Ellison, Ph.D.

Dean's Distinguished Professor, Department of Sociology, UTSA

Christopher G. Ellison holds a B.A. in Religion (1982) and a Ph.D. in Sociology (1991), both from Duke University. Prior to joining the UTSA faculty in 2010, he taught at the University of Texas at Austin for 19 years. His research centers on several main issues: (1) the implications of religion and spirituality for mental and physical health and mortality risk; (2) religious variations in family life, with particular attention to intimate relationships and childrearing; (3) the role of religious institutions, practices, and values among racial and ethnic minority populations in the United States; (4) the influence of religious factors on political attitudes and policy preferences; and (5) public opinion surrounding issues of race, ethnicity, and immigration in the contemporary United States. Ellison has published two books and nearly 200 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on these and other topics; his work has appeared in the American Sociological Review, the American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Social Science Research, the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and a wide range of other journals in sociology, psychology, public health, religious studies, family studies, gerontology, political science, and allied fields. Over the years his research has been supported by various branches of the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, and other private foundations. Ellison has held numerous elected and appointed positions in scholarly societies, including Chair of the Sociology of Religion section of the American Sociological Association, President of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, and Vice-President and President of the Southern Sociological Society, among others, and he serves on the editorial boards of a diverse array of scholarly journals. Among his various honors, in 2004 he was chosen as a Highly Cited Author (Social Sciences, General category) by the Institute for Scientific Information, and in 2015 he was inducted as a charter member of the UTSA Academy of Distinguished Researchers.