Faculty
Mary Ellen Konieczny
Assistant Professor 
Ph.D., University of Chicago, 2005
Research Interests
Religion, Family Life, American Democracy
Profile
Mary Ellen Konieczny joins the CSRS and the Notre Dame Sociology Department after three years as Assistant Professor of Sociology at Concordia University Chicago. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 2005, an M.Div. from Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass. in 1985, and her B.S. from the University of Notre Dame in 1981. Mary Ellen’s research interests revolve around the broad themes of religion and family life, and religion in American democracy. She is particularly interested in exploring how culture and social processes in local contexts intersect with discourse and politics in the public sphere. Her current work includes transforming her dissertation study, an ethnography of liberal and conservative Catholic parishes, into a book tentatively entitled, The Spirit’s Tether: Family, Work and Religion among American Catholics. Her second book project is an historical and ethnographic study of religion at the US Air Force Academy in which she explores religion in the military, and the historical changes in and tensions between the disestablishment of religion and its free exercise at the Academy. Her published work includes analyses of National Congregations Study data with Mark Chaves including “Resources, Race, and Female-Headed Congregations in the US” (JSSR 39(3):458-76).
Contact
Phone: (574) 631-2781
Fax: (574) 631-9238
Office: 815 Flanner Hall
E-mail: MaryEllen.Konieczny.1@nd.edu