Lauren Turek

Position / Title: 
Non-Residential Fellow
Contact: 
lft7k@virginia.edu
Areas of Expertise: 

Lauren Turek is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Virginia and a dissertation completion fellow at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. She specializes in the history of U.S. foreign relations, politics, and 20th-century American evangelicalism. Lauren is currently finishing her dissertation, entitled “To Bring the Good News to All Nations: Evangelicals, Human Rights, and U.S. Foreign Policy, 1969-1994,” which illuminates the complex and deeply significant ways in which religion and religious groups interacted with foreign policy, political culture, and the international human rights regime to shape America’s role in the modern world. She has produced two peer-reviewed articles based on her research: “To Support a “Brother in Christ”: Evangelical Groups and U.S.-Guatemalan Relations during the Ríos Montt Regime,” forthcoming in Diplomatic History and “Religious Rhetoric and the Evolution of George W. Bush’s Political Philosophy,” recently published in the Journal of American Studies. In addition to her academic work as a historian, she also has professional experience in public history, museum exhibition design, and instructional technology. Lauren has earned a B.A. in history from Vassar College, an M.A. in Museum Studies from New York University, and an M.A. in history from the University of Virginia.