Current Doctoral Students

Meet the students in the Religion, Culture, and Society doctoral program. Learn more about their backgrounds and research interests.

Lance Abbott

Honours B.A: Religion & Culture (Wilfrid Laurier University, 2025) 
M.A: Global Justice, Religion & Culture (Wilfrid Laurier University, 2026)

Lance’s research interests include interfaith dialogue and disagreement, epistemological conflict, digital religiosity, and religious practice in postdigital settings. He is primarily interested in apologetics conducted between Muslim and Christian online influencers, looking at their situatedness in broader Internet culture and the effects these apologetics have on religious identity and othering.

Supervisor:  Dr. Meena Sharify-Funk

Malik Faisal Aslam

Malik Faisal Aslam is a PhD Candidate (ABD) in the Joint PhD Program in Religious Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo. He holds a BA in Islamic Studies and Geography and an MSc in Geography from the University of the Punjab, as well as an MA in Religion, Culture and Global Justice from Wilfrid Laurier University.

His research interests include Qur’anic studies and hermeneutics, Islamic ethics and thought, religion and gender, contemporary Muslim intellectual traditions, and Islam in North America. His dissertation, Rereading Qur’an 4:34: Hermeneutics, Gender, and the Pursuit of Justice, examines how linguistic analysis, intra-Qur’anic coherence, and ethical reasoning can inform the interpretation of contested Qur’anic texts and their translation into normative and institutional claims.

Malik is a Graduate Teaching Assistant at Wilfrid Laurier University and serves as Chief Executive Officer and an instructor at Al-Mawrid Institute Canada, where he contributes to curriculum development, public education, and community-based programming. He is also a recipient of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship for 2026–2027.

Supervisor: Dr. Ali Hassan Zaidi 

Douglas Clarke

PhD- Religious Studies (In Progress) Wilfrid Laurier University
MTS- Theological Studies- Conrad Grebel University College (University of Waterloo)
MA- Social Justice and Equity Studies- Brock University
MA- Philosophy- Wilfrid Laurier University
BA- Philosophy/Classics- Wilfrid Laurier University

Certificates

Thanatology (Death and Dying) – Conestoga College Distance Learning
Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers- Certified Sommelier- Niagara College

My interests are varied and focus on issues of race and racism, especially as they are expressed in art and visual culture. I have a strong focus on popular culture and the way that mythology and folklore continue to be articulated in visual media. I currently work within the field of Caribbean religions, looking at images of death spirits in Haitian Vodou and beyond. I am interested in how images of the figure Baron Samedi continue to be recycled in popular visual culture and what this can say about his symbolic value and meaning as a respected and important spiritual figure in his native religious context. When I am not studying the confluence of visual culture, folklore, and the religious imagination, I am often studying wine, spirits, and all things hospitality.

Supervisor: Dr. Carol Duncan

Zahra Jafer

Honours BA., 2016 (Conflict Studies; University of Ottawa & Saint Paul University); M.A, 2019 (Conflict Studies; University of Ottawa & Saint Paul University)

Research interests: Religion, History, Interfaith dialogue, Lived religion, Intersectionality, Post-colonial theory.

Zahra’s research focuses on complex religious experiences of affiliated minority groups in North America, and their challenges to maintain an equilibrium of faith and modernity within the context of ‘double consciousness’. Her fieldwork will include a series of comprehensive interviews with several affiliates from various religious groups in Eastern Ontario, which will examine dimensions of their relationship towards faith, identity, institution and community.

Supervisor: Dr. Abderrahman Beggar

Sahver Kuzucuoglu 

B.Sc. (University of Waterloo); M.A. (Religion and Culture, Wilfrid Laurier University); M.A. (Cultural Analysis and Social Theory, Wilfrid Laurier University)

Sahver Kuzucuoglu holds a Masters Degree in Religion and Culture, a second MA in Cultural Analysis and Social Theory, and is currently a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. Sahver has worked for many years as an Interpreter/Translator in the settlement of new Canadians in Southern Ontario fueled by her passion for volunteerism, multiculturalism, community, decoloniality, pluraversality, and intercultural dialogue. Her current research areas include Turkish Cultural Studies, Sufi Studies, Islam in North America, Multiculturalism, and the identity negotiation of the ‘minority within a minority.’

Supervisor:  Dr. Meena Sharify-Funk

Kaitlin McCartney

Honours BA, 2013: Religion and Culture; English, Wilfrid Laurier University & Philipps-Universität Marburg
Post Graduate Diploma in Education, 2015: The University of the West of Scotland
MEd, 2018: Wilfrid Laurier University

Research Interests: Islam in Canada, Christianity and Islam, religious conversion, Muslim identity, lived religion, Islam and the West, interfaith relations, and Canadian religious history.

Kate’s research explores religious conversion as both a historical concept and a contemporary lived experience, focusing particularly on converts from Christianity to Islam in Canada. Her work asks what it actually means to “convert”: where the term comes from, how its meaning developed within Christianity, and whether a historically Christian concept can adequately describe the experience of becoming Muslim.

Her research traces changing scholarly understandings and histories of conversion, recognizing that religious change has taken remarkably different forms across time and place – from gradual spiritual and intellectual transformations to large-scale social and political shifts. It also considers the long and complex relationship between Islam, Christianity, and the West and how these histories continue to shape perceptions of Muslim converts today.

Drawing on lived religion and the experiences of converts themselves, Kate examines how becoming Muslim reshapes identity, belonging, everyday practice, and relationships while also asking what remains from a person’s previous religious and cultural life. Her doctoral research ultimately uses conversion as a lens for understanding Islam’s evolving place within Canada’s increasingly diverse religious landscape.

Supervisor:  Dr. Meena Sharify-Funk

Hajrah Mumtaz

MA (English Literature, 1997, PU); MA (Anthropology of the Media, 2003, SOAS); MA (Religion, Culture and Global Justice, 2023, WLU).

With an extensive background in print journalism, Hajrah’s research interests lie in forms of ‘colonisations’, violence, and ideology-driven contestations over space and identities, explored through the lens of dystopian pop-culture.

Supervisor: Dr. Abderrahman Beggar

David O'Reilly

Irem Osmanoglu

BSc (Ankara University - International Relations)
MA (University of Bologna, Vytautas Magnus University, Saint Petersburg State University and Corvinus University of Budapest - Interdisciplinary Research and Studies on Eastern Europe)
MA (Lakehead University - Social Justice Studies)

My research focus is reconceptualizing notions of identity and religious relations within the framework of Balkan Orthodox Christianity in the context of post-nationalism and post-socialism. Specifically, I intend to analyse the Traditional and North American Orthodox Christian Churches in Southern Ontario. By exploring the challenges of integrating into Canadian society, my research study aims to shed light on the differences among Balkan Orthodox Christians and analyse how self-identity paradigms address these complexities within the context of urban religious phenomena in Canada's Balkan diasporas. 

Supervisor: Dr. Dejan Guzina

Hasaan Sobaan

HBSc.(Psychology), 2022, University of Toronto
MA (Global Justice, Religion, and Culture), 2025, Wilfrid Laurier University

My research interests include Islam and Sufism, identity, modernity, and transnationalism among South Asian Muslim communities in South Asia and in the diaspora. Specifically, I am interested in exploring the ways in which traditional Sufi beliefs and practices are taken up by these communities in the present day, and the role they play in identity formation and articulation. 

Supervisor: Dr. Meena Sharify-Funk