Emily Smith is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at the University of Notre Dame. She is interested in how women in the United States have understood motherhood as religious practice and obligation. Smith’s dissertation examines how Catholic and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint (LDS) women experienced, described, and challenged religious pronatalism and sacralized maternity in post-WWII America. Her research centers on twentieth-century American history; women, maternity, and reproduction; and religion in America.

Smith graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Religion and Psychology from Kalamazoo College, and a Master’s of Theological Studies with a concentration in Women, Gender, Sexuality, and Religion from Harvard Divinity School. She will serve as the Gender Studies Graduate Student Teaching Apprentice and President of the Union of Graduate Historians for the 2020-2021 academic year. In addition to participating in Notre Dame working groups in history of religion and gender, Smith co-organizes the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality History Working Group.