Director
Brett G. Scharffs, Rex E. Lee Chair and Professor of Law at J. Reuben Clark Law School, was appointed Director of the Law School's International Center for Law and Religion Studies effective 1 May 2016. He had served the Center as Associate Director and Regional Advisor for Asia since 2009 and the Law School as both Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Associate Dean for Faculty and Curriculum. Formerly Francis R. Kirkham Professor of Law, Professor Scharffs was appointed on 1 September 2017 to the Law School's Rex E. Chair.
Professor Scharffs' teaching and scholarly interests include law and religion, legal reasoning and rhetoric, philosophy... more
Founding Director
W. Cole Durham, Jr., Susa Young Gates University Professor of Law at Brigham Young University, is Founding Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies. From its official organization on January 1, 2000, until May 1, 2016, Professor Durham was Director of the Center, which was organized to provide an institutional base for long-term initiatives in the field of law and religion throughout the world, begun in the Law School in the mid-1980s by Professor Durham and continued in subsequent years with the involvement of many students and colleagues.
Professor Durham holds am AB degree in Philosophy magna cum laude from Harvard College, and he joined the faculty at BYU Law School in 1976, just one year... more
Associate Director
Regional Advisor for Europe
As Associate Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Elizabeth Clark has co-organized and taken part in dozens of conferences and academic projects with other scholars and with government leaders from around the world. She has from the beginning been a primary organizer of the annual International Law and Religion Symposium at Brigham Young University. She has taken part in drafting commentaries and legal analyses of pending legislation and developments affecting religious freedom, and has assisted in drafting amicus briefs on international religious freedom issues for... more
Associate Director
Regional Advisor for Latin America and Africa
Professor Gary Doxey, former Managing Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, rejoined Center as Associate Director in 2009 after three years during which he served as president of the Mexico City South Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In April 2011 Professor Doxey was called as an Area Seventy of the Church, with a five-year term ending in 2016. Before joining the law school, Professor Doxey served under Governor Olene S. Walker of Utah as chief of staff – the state’s top appointed official, head of the cabinet, and chief operating officer of the... more
Associate Director
Jane Wise joined the International Center for Law and Religion Studies as an Associate Director in May 2017. She comes most recently from twenty years as an adjunct professor (advocacy faculty) at the Law School, where she served on the legal writing and external relations committees. She taught legal writing, lawyering skills, and law and literature courses in the classroom, as well as legal writing classes online. She developed curricula for the American legal academy including materials for English as a–second-language law students, and the the writing curriculum she helped design for BYU Law's Rex E. Lee Advocacy Program was ranked 17th in the nation for legal writing programs in law schools by U.S. News and... more
Publications Director
Donlu DeWitt Thayer is the Center's Publications Director, with responsibility for overseeing print and electronic publications, including the Center's websites and social media outlets, and the Law and Religion Headlines sent near daily to subscribers worldwide. A significant responsibility is maintaining the website and case table of the Strasbourg Consortium, which tracks the freedom-of-religion-or-belief jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. She is Associate Editor of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion and was Associate Editor of the 5-volume Encyclopedia of Law and Religion (Brill 2016, Gerhard Robbers and Cole Durham, eds). She has participated as writer or editor in Center publication projects including briefs for the US Supreme Court and the European Court of Human... more
Center Coordinator and Executive Assistant
Deborah Wright has been Coordinator and Administrative Assistant at the International Center for Law and Religion Studies since 2001. She supervises the administrative staff and coordinates the activities of all Center personnel and is at the heart of organization and scheduling of the Center's many conferences, including logistics, travel, accommodations, on campus and worldwide. Most especially, the continued success of the annual International Law and Religion Symposium wouldn't be possible without Deborah’s competence and tireless efforts in the year-round efforts of organization, planning, communication, and coordination of events and facilities, of faculty, students, delegates, hosts, and visitors, all of... more
Conference Liaison
Sherie Rogde joined the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University in November 2018 in the role of Conference Liaison. Sherie’s past experience includes working for several years in BYU’s Division of Continuing Education as a program administrator, planning and executing numerous conferences, and providing a variety of educational opportunities to many people. Sherie earned a master’s degree from BYU’s Marriott School in Organizational Behavior with an emphasis in international development. She has served on nonprofit boards of directors and participated in development and humanitarian efforts in West Africa, Egypt, Central and South America. Her responsibilities at the Center include acting as a key liaison officer for the Religious Freedom Annual Review, assisting with the International Law and Religion Symposium, and coordinating other conferences worldwide.
Communications Specialist
Blythe Shupe joined the International Center for Law and Religion Studies in September 2015 as a Communications Specialist. She had spent the previous ten years as an account manager in the world of pre-employment screening. In this position, she worked closely with Human Resources, Compliance Departments, and Security Departments of large companies setting up and monitoring background screening programs for new hires to ensure the client was hiring the best possible candidate while operating within federal, state, and local laws. She specialized in the complicated screening practices surrounding healthcare, financial firms and aviation. She honed her communication... more
International Advisory Council and Conference Liaison
Sandy Stephenson joined the International Center for Law and Religion Studies staff in July 2015. She assists in the Center's development efforts as liaison with the growing network of supporters making up the Center's International Advisory Council. She also works in organizing and coordinating a number of the Center’s many sponsored conferences worldwide. Sandy has owned and operated two different businesses and has worked at the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and for the U.S. Senate. She graduated from Brigham Young University in Humanities with emphases in Art, Art History, and French. She... more