Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou is Visiting Professor in the International Studies Program at Boston College, and an affiliated faculty member of the Islamic Civilizations and Societies Program as well as the Boisi Center for Relgion and American Public Life. Her research interests and policy work focus on the intersections of geopolitics, religion, and human rights, with particular focus on the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. Prodromou served a diplomatic appointment on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (2004-2012), and she was a member of the U.S. Secretary of State’s Religion & Foreign Policy Working Group (2011-2015). She is co-editor of two volumes, Eastern Orthodox Christianity and American Higher Education: Theological, Historical, and Contemporary Reflections, and Thinking through Faith: Perspectives from Orthodox Christian Scholars, and multiple book chapters, and is widely published in academic journals such as Journal of World Christianity, Journal of Democracy, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Orbis, and Survival.
She sits on the editorial board of The Review of Faith & International Affairs and The Journal of World Christianity, and Co-Chairs the Orthodoxy, Politics, and International Relations Group of the International Orthodox Theological Association. Her policy and practitioner appointments include the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center (Non-Resident Senior Fellow), Religions for Peace (Co-President), and the Freedom of Religion or Belief Women’s Alliance (Alliance Advisor). She was a member of the delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to the Holy and Great Council at Crete in 2016.
Her current research focuses on two areas: religious geopolitics and typologies of power, with a case study of Russian influence-building through religious soft and sharp power; and, the effects of cultural heritage policy on institutional religious freedom and religious pluralism, with comparative case studies from the Near East.
Prodromou has taught at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, where she was the founding faculty director of the Initiative on Religion, Law, and Diplomacy; at Boston University; Princeton University; and, as an invited flying faculty member, at the College of Europe (Natolin campus). She earned a Ph.D. and an S.M. in political science from MIT, an M.A.L.D. from The Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a B.A. in history and international relations from Tufts University, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude.
