Lance Laird received his BA in religious studies with a focus on Islam from the University of Virginia in 1986. He studied Christian theology at Baptist seminaries in Kentucky and Switzerland, earning an MDiv in 1989. Dr. Laird completed his ThD in comparative religion at the Harvard Divinity School in 1998. His dissertation, "Martyrs, Heroes and Saints: Shared Symbols of Muslims and Christians in Contemporary Palestinian Society," examined Christian-Muslim relations and nationalism through ethnographic fieldwork in Bethlehem. He has taught a variety of interdisciplinary programs at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA over the past five years. Dr. Laird's main research focus has been religion and nationalism as well as Islamic identities in the US. He recently published a chapter on "Religions of the Pacific Rim in the Pacific Northwest" in Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest: The None Zone (Altamira, forthcoming). Dr. Laird has also worked with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Church Council of Greater Seattle on interfaith dialogue and research efforts as well as with the Pluralism Project at Harvard University. He lives in Jamaica Plain with his wife and three children.