Rachel C. Schneider is Assistant Professor of Religion and Public Life at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she co-directs the Religion and Nonprofit Leadership undergraduate concentration in the Department of Religious Studies. Her work examines how religion shapes everyday public life, with particular attention to how religious communities respond to social challenges and change.

Schneider’s research and teaching span religion in the workplace; religion, health, and science; race and religion; religion and civic life; and the nonprofit sector. She is committed to helping students understand religion as a lived and public force in contemporary society. Drawing on both the humanities and social sciences, she uses qualitative research and cultural analysis to study how people practice religion in complex social worlds.

Schneider’s scholarship has appeared in leading academic journals, and she is co-editor of Emerging Church, Millennials and Religion, Vol. 2 (2022). She is completing a book on contemporary Christianity in South Africa and co-leads a research project on interfaith leadership that explores how religious communities collaborate across differences to serve the common good.