Shakir Stephen is a Ph.D. candidate in Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
His research focuses on secularism in the United States, examining how people in professional contexts distinguish between secular and religious values and manage the boundaries between them. His dissertation analyzes how Christians within professional organizations for scientists and artists define and interpret secular values, contributing to broader debates about what counts as “secular” in American public life.
Stephen has co-authored research with Dr. Joseph Blankholm, Dr. Ryan Cragun, and Abraham Hawley Suárez based on the Secular Communities Survey (n = 12,370), the largest study to date of organized nonbelievers in the United States. Some of his current projects include a quantitative analysis of how nonreligious Americans relate to religion based on that dataset, and research on science curriculum in public education and its associated legal dynamics. At UC Santa Barbara, he has taught courses on religion and politics, capitalism in American culture, and American religious history.
