We have a great lineup of speakers for the 2013 FAIR Conference. Below you will find an overview of each speaker’s credentials and their presentation. If you would like to see the schedule of when the speakers will be addressing the Conference, visit our Conference overview page.
Michael R. Ash
Michael R. Ash is a veteran staff member of the FAIR, former weekly columnist for the Mormon Times, and current columnist for Meridian Magazine. He has presented at six of the past fourteen FAIR Conferences and has written more than 200 articles defending the faith. He has been published in the FARMS Review, Sunstone, Dialogue, and the Ensign, and appears in the FAIR DVDs on the Book of Abraham as well as one addressing DNA and the Book of Mormon. Michael is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony In the Face of Criticism and Doubt and his second book, Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith. Michael and his wife Christine live in Ogden and are the parents of three daughters and the grandparents of six.
Presentation: Shaken Faith Syndrome, Part Deux.
Ron Barney
Ronald O. Barney is Executive Director of the Mormon History Association. He worked for 33 years as an archivist and historian before retiring from the LDS Church History Department in 2011. He was Associate Editor of the Joseph Smith Papers and Executive Producer of the Joseph Smith Papers television series. His books on Mormon history have won several awards. He lives in North Salt Lake, Utah, with his wife Marilyn. They have three children and ten grandchildren.
Presentation: Joseph Smith’s Visions.
Don Bradley
Don Bradley is a writer, editor, and researcher specializing in early Mormon history. Don recently performed an internship with the Joseph Smith Papers Project and is completing his thesis, on the earliest Mormon conceptions of the New Jerusalem, toward an M.A. in History at Utah State University. He has published on the translation of the Book of Mormon, plural marriage before Nauvoo, and Joseph Smith’s “grand fundamental principles of Mormonism” and plans to publish an extensive analysis, co-authored with Mark Ashurst-McGee, on the Kinderhook plates. Don’s first book, The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Missing Contents of the Book of Mormon, is slated to be published by Greg Kofford Books in September.
Presentation: The Original Context of the First Vision Narrative: 1820s or 1830s.
Panel: The Loss and Rekindling of Faith.
Janet L. Eyring
Janet L. Eyring (BA Spanish, Brigham Young University; MA TESOL and Ph.D. Applied Linguistics, UCLA) chaired the Department of Modern Languages at California State University, Fullerton, from 2003-2010. She is currently a professor of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Her research and teaching interests include: Methods of Teaching Reading and Writing, Pedagogical Grammar, Second Language Curriculum, Second Language Assessment, Experiential Learning, Technology and Language Learning, and Service-Learning. She served on the ICAS ELL Task Force to study ESL students in California public higher education and is a current member of the English Language Advisory Panel for the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, investigating teacher preparation for English Language Learners (ELLs) in California. She is married to Brian Thompson and has two step-children, Melanie Thompson Spencer and Melissa Thompson.
Panel: The Loss and Rekindling of Faith.
Kris Fredrickson
Kristine Wardle Frederickson (Ph.D., University of Utah) teaches British, European, and World History, Religion, and Women’s Studies at both Brigham Young University and Utah Valley University. She has written and presented widely on Victorian England, Mormon history and historiography, human trafficking and women’s issues. She recently published Extraordinary Courage: Women Empowered by the Gospel of Jesus Christ and has contributed to several other books including Life Lessons from Mothers of Faith, and The Doctrine and Covenants Reference Companion.
A journalism undergraduate she helped to cover the 1970 World Cup soccer games in Mexico City and the 1972 Munich Olympics for United Press International. She currently writes a weekly column for the Mormon Times portion of Salt Lake City’s Deseret News.
Among her non-academic interests are family activities, travel, reading, tennis, swimming, basketball, carpentry, calligraphy, jewelry-making, politics and current events.
Panel: Charity Never Faileth: Seeking Sisterhood Amid Different Perspectives on Mormon Feminism.
Ralph Hancock
Ralph C. Hancock holds degrees from BYU and Harvard, and has taught political philosophy at Brigham Young University since 1987; he is also President of the John Adams Center for the Study of Faith, Philosophy and Public Affairs, an independent educational foundation (johnadamscenter.org). His most recent book is The Responsibility of Reason: Theory and Practice in a Liberal-Democratic Age (Rowman & Littlefield), and a new edition of his Calvin and the Foundations of Modern Politics has recently been published by Saint Augustine’s Press; he has also translated numerous works from French. Dr.Hancock is also a contributing editor of the quarterly Perspectives on Political Science and an editor at the online scholarly journal SquareTwo.org, which addresses public affairs for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ralph and his wife, Julie, are parents of five children and grandparents of ten.
Presentation: Mormonism and the New Liberalism: the Inescapability of Political Apologetics.
Maxine Hanks
Maxine is a theologian and lecturer researching gender in religion, especially Christian and Mormon theology. She has lectured in gender studies at the University of Utah, and guest lectured at UVU, BYU, Weber State, Harvard Divinity School, Salt Lake Theological Seminary, and SLC Community College, as well as presenting at religious studies conferences. She studied Humanities, English, and Gender Studies at BYU and the U. of U., and studied History and Religious Studies at the U. of U., Harvard, and other schools. She was a fellow with the Utah Humanities Council and at Harvard Divinity School.
She has authored or co-authored several books including Women & Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism, Mormon Faith in America, Getting Together With Yesterday, A History of Sanpete County, and was a contributor to Secrets of Mary Magdalene, Religion in America, and Latter-day Dissent. She has published articles, and edited many books, and contributed research or been cited in numerous books on Mormonism or religion. She has also created web resources about Mormon women.
She has served on several boards, including the Salt Lake Interfaith Roundtable, Orrin Hatch’s Women’s Council, the Utah Attorney General’s Safety Net Committee, Utah Issues, and Network, and has chaired Interfaith Week in Utah, plus sponsored many public programs on religion or women in religion. She has done corporate and professional consulting, and political lobbying, and has consulted for television and media projects, also appearing on ABC Nightline, PBS, A&E, CNN, BBC, and in TIME magazine, Vogue, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, Boston Globe, Chicago Times, Associated Press, Reuters, and Utah media.
After leaving the LDS Church as one of the “September Six” in 1993, Hanks studied and served in ministry, clergy work, and chaplaincy in various settings, including at Holy Cross for 13 years. In 2012, she returned to membership in the LDS Church, where she serves in her ward Young Women’s Presidency, and as a VT supervisor.
Presentation: Working With the Church: Another Narrative.
Panel: Charity Never Faileth: Seeking Sisterhood Amid Different Perspectives on Mormon Feminism.
Panel: The Loss and Rekindling of Faith.
Valerie Hudson
Valerie M. Hudson is Professor and George H.W. Bush Chair at The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. She has previously taught at Brigham Young, Northwestern, and Rutgers universities. Her research foci include foreign policy analysis, security studies, gender and international relations, and methodology. Hudson’s articles have appeared in such journals as International Security, Journal of Peace Research, Political Psychology, and Foreign Policy Analysis. She is the author or editor of several books, including (with Andrea Den Boer) Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population (MIT Press, 2004), which won the American Association of Publishers Award for the Best Book in Political Science, and the Otis Dudley Duncan Award for Best Book in Social Demography, resulting in feature stories in the New York Times, The Economist, 60 Minutes, and other news publications. Hudson was named to the list of Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers for 2009. Winner of numerous teaching awards and recipient of a National Science Foundation research grant, she served as the director of graduate studies for the David M. Kennedy Center for International and Area Studies for eight years, and served as Vice President of the International Studies Association for 2011-2012. Hudson is one of the Principal Investigators of the WomanStats Project, which includes the largest compilation of data on the status of women in the world today. She is also a founding editor of SquareTwo, a founding editorial board member of Foreign Policy Analysis, and an editorial board member of Politics and Gender, the American Political Science Review, and the International Studies Review, has testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Her most recent book is Sex and World Peace, co-authored with Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli and Chad Emmett, and published by Columbia University Press. She and her husband David, a landscape architect, are the parents of eight children.
Panel: Charity Never Faileth: Seeking Sisterhood Amid Different Perspectives on Mormon Feminism.
Robert Kirby
Salt Lake Tribune humor columnist Robert Kirby was raised in a military family. After serving an LDS mission to South America, Kirby became a police officer. His law enforcement career was cut short in 1989 by the idiotic notion of becoming a writer.
Robert has written for the Tribune since 1994. His column appears every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. He is the author of six humor books, two novels, and a history book on Utah’s murdered police officers.
A confused grandfather, Kirby has three daughters and one wife. He lives with his long-suffering family in Herriman, where neighbors no longer speak to him on the record.
Presentation: Why It is Important to Laugh at Ourselves.
Neylan McBain
A graduate of Yale University and a native of New York City, Neylan McBaine is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Mormon Women Project, a 501(c)3 non-profit website which features weekly interviews with LDS women from around the world at www.mormonwomen.com. Additionally, Neylan is associate creative director at Bonneville Communications, the creative agency of choice for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the agency responsible for the “I’m A Mormon” campaign. Neylan comes to Bonneville with extensive experience in online and retail marketing from several Bay Area companies including Walmart.com and Tea Collection clothing.
As a religion writer and personal essayist, Neylan has been published in Newsweek, The Washington Post, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Segullah, Meridian Magazine, Patheos.com and BustedHalo.com. She is the author of a collection of personal essays—How to Be a Twenty-First Century Pioneer Woman (2008). She lives with her husband and three daughters in Salt Lake City.
Panel: Charity Never Faileth: Seeking Sisterhood Amid Different Perspectives on Mormon Feminism.
Seth Payne
Seth Payne is a life-long member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In 2008, Seth graduated Magna Cum Laude from Yale University with an M.A. in Religion. At Yale, Seth focused his studies on theological and political ethics as well as Mormon Studies. Seth’s academic interest remains centered on practical ethics and their real-world application and, as a member of the American Academy of Religion; Seth has presented several papers on these topics at regional meetings over the past several years.
In 2006, Seth joined with Richard Bushman, Terryl Givens, Ariel Bybee Laughton, and Taylor Petrey to organize the now bi-annual Faith & Knowledge conference series; an academic conference dedicated to exploring issues and challenges unique to LDS graduate students of religious studies.
Seth currently works in Seattle as a Sr. Product Manager in the high-tech software industry. Prior to this, Seth lived and worked in Manhattan developing technology and data solutions for global capital markets.
Seth holds an MBA from New York University and a B.S. in Management from Brigham Young University.
Presentation: Why Mormonism Matters: Pastoral Apologetics and the LDS Doubter.
Dan Peterson
A native of southern California, Daniel C. Peterson received a bachelor’s degree in Greek and philosophy from Brigham Young University (BYU) and, after several years of study in Jerusalem and Cairo, earned his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Dr. Peterson is a professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic at BYU, where he has taught Arabic language and literature at all levels, Islamic philosophy, Islamic culture and civilization, Islamic religion, the Qur’an, the introductory and senior “capstone” courses for Middle Eastern Studies majors, and various other occasional specialized classes. He is the author of several books and numerous articles on Islamic and Latter-day Saint topics–including a biography entitled Muhammad: Prophet of God (Eerdmans, 2007)—and has lectured across the United States, in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, and at various Islamic universities in the Near East and Asia. He served in the Switzerland Zürich Mission (1972-1974), and, for approximately eight years, on the Gospel Doctrine writing committee for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He also presided for a time as the bishop of a singles ward adjacent to Utah Valley University. Dr. Peterson is married to the former Deborah Stephens, of Lakewood, Colorado, and they are the parents of three sons.
Presentation: Toward a More Effective Apologetics.
Morris Thurston
A graduate of Harvard Law School and a retired litigation partner in the global law firm Latham & Watkins, Morris Thurston currently serves as chair of the Dialogue Board of Directors and host of the Dialogue podcasts. He often lectures on the subject of memoir writing and co-authored, with his wife, Dawn, Breathe Life into Your Life Story: How to Write a Story People Will Want to Read. He has served as a contributor to the Joseph Smith Papers (Legal Series) and has been an adjunct assistant professor at BYU Law School. His article in BYU Studies titled “The Boggs Assault and Attempted Extradition: Joseph Smith’s Most Famous Case,” received an award of excellence from the Mormon History Association in 2010. He contributed a chapter to Why I Stay: The Challenge of Discipleship for Contemporary Mormons (2011) and the foreword to The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes (2012). He and Dawn live in Villa Park, California and are parents of six children, two of whom are deceased, and grandparents of five. They are members of the Miller Eccles Study Group board and host the MESG Orange County meetings.
Presentation: “Kidnapping” at Palestine Grove: Missouri’s Final Attempt to Extradite Joseph Smith.
Wendy Ulrich
Wendy Ulrich, holds a PhD in psychology and education from the University of Michigan, an MBA from UCLA, and a BA from BYU. Former president of the Association of Mormon Counselors and Psychotherapists (AMCAP), she is the founder of Sixteen Stones Center for Growth in Alpine, Utah, providing seminar-retreats on forgiveness, loss, spirituality, and personal growth. Her books include The Temple Experience, Forgiving Ourselves and Weakness is Not Sin. She has been a visiting professor at BYU, and has served in the LDS Church in many capacities. She and her husband Dave Ulrich have three children and four grandchildren.
Panel: Charity Never Faileth: Seeking Sisterhood Amid Different Perspectives on Mormon Feminism.
Rosalynde Welch
Rosalynde Welch is a member of the Frontenac, Missouri ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She holds degrees in English literature from Brigham Young University and the University of California, San Diego, where her dissertation focused on private conscience in early modern English literature. She writes on interreligious issues for the St Louis Post-Dispatch, and she blogs on Mormonism at Patheos.com and timesandseasons.org. Her writing has appeared in BYU Studies, Dialogue, Element, and other venues. Rosalynde and her husband John, together with their four young children, make their home in St Louis, Missouri.
Presentation: Disenchanted Mormonism.
Lynne Wilson
Lynne Wilson lives in Palo Alto, California with her husband President Dow R. Wilson. She is mother to seven children—all with red hair. She graduated from BYU focusing on Nursing and the cello. When her youngest entered school, she finished off her graduate school to receive her MA in Religious Studies. Her thesis explored Christ’s birth narratives in the New Testament. She received her PhD in Theology and American History at Marquette University. Her dissertation focused on Joseph Smith’s understanding of the Holy Ghost compared to other 19th Century theologians. She is an adjunct professor at BYU and directs and teaches at the Menlo Park Stake institute (or better known as Stanford Institute). She is a research fellow for BYU Studies, the Maxwell Institute, and Interpreter. Lynne has been a volunteer in the Church Education System for the past seventeen years in France, Belgium, Wisconsin, and most recently in California. She a popular presenter at Education week and has also presented papers at the Society of Biblical Literature, Sperry Symposium, BYU Studies 50th Anniversary Symposium, RSC Easter Conference, and Stanford Friday Forums. She has several articles published on biblical studies and her first two books will be published in 2014.
Presentation: Was Joseph a Product of the Second Great Awakening.
Mark Alan Wright
Dr. Mark Alan Wright was born and raised in Long Beach, California. He earned his BA in Anthropology from UCLA and received his MA and PhD degrees in Anthropology from UC Riverside, all with an emphasis on Mesoamerican Archaeology. He regularly conducts fieldwork in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Belize. His research interests include Classic period Maya ritual and religion, Mesoamerican writing systems, and the historicity of the Book of Mormon. Dr. Wright has been teaching in the Ancient Scripture department at Brigham Young University since 2007. He has spoken at academic conferences at Oxford, Harvard, Yale, Duke, UCLA, and many other institutions. He is on the board of trustees at the Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum. His published articles include “The Cultural Context of Nephite Apostasy” (in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, 2012) and “According to Their Language, Unto their Understanding: Hierophanies and Theophanies in LDS Canon” (in Studies in the Bible and Antiquity, 2011). He is married to the former Traci Turner, who is currently an adjunct professor of History at Utah Valley University. Mark and Traci just welcomed their first child – a perfect little girl named Annika – in April of 2013.
Presentation: Heartland as Hinterland: The Mesoamerican Core and North American Periphery of Book of Mormon Geography.
