Simranjit Khalsa
Assistant Professor
Simranjit Khalsa is an Assistant Professor of Sociology. Her academic interests are united by an effort to understand the role of religion in modern society, particularly for religious minorities.
Dr. Khalsa received her PhD from Rice University in 2020. Her dissertation research
examines the intersection of religion with race, national belonging, and gender in
the case of Sikhism. Specifically, she compares two Sikh communities, one of Indian
Sikhs and another of primarily white converts to Sikhism, in two national contexts,
the US and England. Dr Khalsa is currently developing a book manuscript based on this
research. Other streams of her research look at religion and spirituality across national
contexts, and religion and environmentalism. She primarily employs qualitative methods
and a comparative lens to study these topics.
Dr. Khalsa's research can be found in Sociology of Religion, The Sociological Quarterly,
Social Problems, Socius, Religions, and Environmental Politics. Her teaching interests
include religion, race, immigration, religion and science, and urban inequality. She
also values introducing students to the disciplinary lens of both sociology and religious
studies in introductory courses of each discipline.