Julia Berger is Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Religion at Montclair State University. Her recent publication, Rethinking Religion and Politics in a Plural World (Bloomsbury, 2021) explores the changing role of religion in the international arena. Dr. Berger is currently Senior Fellow with the Baha'i International Community's United Nations Office in New York, where she served as Principal Researcher from 2004-2015, focusing on human rights, gender equality and social development and representing the Office in various UN fora. Her 2003 article about religious NGOs at the United Nations was one of the first to examine the field of international religious NGO in international affairs.Â
From 2002-2004, Dr. Berger was Research Associate at Harvard University’s Program on Religion and Public Life, where she explored the role of religious organizations in the provision of social services in the US. She currently serves on the Leadership Team of the American Academy of Religion Women’s Caucus and Co-Chairs the Academy’s Baha’i Studies Unit. She holds a PhD from the University of Kent, UK in Theology and Religious Studies; an M. Ed. in International Development and Education from the University of Toronto; and is an Associate of the Toronto Royal Conservatory of Music in Piano Pedagogy. Dr. Berger is a member of the Montclair Interfaith Clergy Association, the Local Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Montclair, and a founding member of the Montclair Race Amity Initiative.
She is a citizen of Poland, Canada, and the United States, and lives in Montclair, NJ with her husband and twin daughters.
