Diane Moore

Diane L. Moore is the faculty director of Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School, a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions, and a faculty affiliate of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and the Middle East Initiative. Her research is on enhancing the public understanding of religion through education from the lens of critical theory. As a faculty director at HDS, she leads the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative in partnership with the Harvard Kennedy School and the Religious Literacy and the Professions Initiative. She recently completed the Religious Literacy and Humanitarian Action Research Project in partnership with Oxfam, which was funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. She also served on a task force at the US State Department in the Office of Religion and Global Affairs in the Obama Administration to enhance training about religion for foreign service officers and other State Department personnel. Moore launched the massive open online course (MOOC) "Religion, Conflict and Peace" through HarvardX in January 2018. She co-chaired the American Academy of Religion (AAR) project to create the AAR Religious Literacy Guidelines: What US College Graduates Need to Understand About Religion published in 2019 and chaired the AAR's task force on religion in the schools. Her book, Overcoming Religious Illiteracy: A Cultural Studies Approach to the Study of Religion in Secondary Education, was published by Palgrave in 2007. In 2014 she received the Petra Shattuck Excellence in Teaching Award from the Harvard Extension School and the Griffiths award from the Connecticut Council for Interfaith Understanding for her work promoting the public understanding of religion. In 2005-06 she was one of two professors chosen by HDS students as Outstanding Teacher of the Year. Moore is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).