CESR STAFF

Larry Iannaccone

Director

Larry Iannaccone is Director of CESR and Koch Professor of Economics at George Mason University. Prior to joining George Mason University faculty in 2002, he was Professor of Economics at Santa Clara University and had served as a National Fellow and Visiting Scholar at Stanford's Hoover Institution.

Larry earned his M.S. in Mathematics and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago, and wrote his doctoral thesis on rational addiction and religious behavior in 1984.

Professor Iannaccone is one of the world's leading authority on the economics of religion. His research on the economics of religion has appeared in The Journal of Political Economy, The American Economic Review, The Journal of Economic Literature, Economic Inquiry, The American Journal of Sociology, The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and many other journals and books.

Gary Richardson

GMU Faculty Member

Gary Richardson (Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley) is Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of California at Irvine. He visited CESR from January through April of 2006 while doing research on religion and economics in medieval Europe. Gary recently received a Templeton "Spiritual Capital Research Initiative" grant from the Metanexus Institute to study the linked evolution of religious and economic institutions in medieval Europe and the reformation.

Christine Brickman

Associate Director/Research Associate

Christine Brickman is CESR's Associate Director and also CESR Research Associate. She is PhD student in Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America and has a MA degree from CUA in Religion and Culture. Christine has specific interest in social-scientific approaches to the study of religion. Her masters thesis interprets trend data on clergy abuse through the lens of psychological and rational choice theories.

Christine received her Bachelors degree in Economics from John Carroll University. Before pursuing graduate work, she worked as an economic research assistant for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Billy Foster

Conference Manager

Billy Foster, a second-year PhD student in Economics, provides the office with support in several different areas. This summer, he designed and taught George Mason's first summer math review for incoming PhD students. He is also a teaching assistant for Prof. Iannaccone's Mathematical Economics 630 class. Billy's role in both CESR and ASREC is to facilitate the coordination of website development, data management, and conference planning. Billy joined the CESR office in October 2006.

Carrie A. Miles

Senior Research Fellow

Carrie A. Miles is a Senior Research Fellow at CESR, and the executive officer for the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture. Dr. Miles holds a Ph.D. in social and organizational psychology from the University of Chicago. Her new book "The Redemption of Love" explores the intersection of Christianity, economics and the family. Carrie also applied her work on a 2 week speaking tour in Uganda during October 2005. While there, she presented her paper, "'For Richer, for Poorer': Materialism's Corruption of the Family, Past and Present, and Moral Solutions to Its Problems," at Kyambogo University in Kampala, Uganda. Finally, Dr. Miles presented her work, "Patriarchy or Gender Equality? Reading the Apostle Paul in Light of Ancient History and Modern Economics," at the 2005 meetings of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion/Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture, Rochester, New York. This paper is scheduled for publication in the June 2006 issue of Dialogue.

Mike Makowsky

Research Associate

Michael Makowsky is a Ph.D. candidate in economics and graduate of the Sante Fe Institute Complex Systems Summer School. He has published articles in The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion and Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. He is currently working on his dissertation on moderate, sectarian and extremist religious groups. Michael is also engaged in joint research on the role of speeding tickets in local public finance and modeling R&D and increasing returns in a competitive marketplace.

Brian Hollar

Research Associate

Assists in administration, website development, and operations of the research center. Conducts research in the economics of religion, including investigation of the behavior of religious groups using agent-based models.

Nikki Mango

Webmaster

Nikki Mango is the Web Designer for CESR and is responsible for the design and management of all the organization's sites. She is a graduate of Winthrop University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design. Nikki joined CESR in April 2007.