Freedom Project Faculty and Staff

Advisory Board

William E. Cain is Mary Jewett Gaiser Professor of English and American Studies at Wellesley College, where he teaches courses in American literature, American Studies, and Shakespeare.

Stanley S. Chang

Mildred Lane Kemper Professor of Mathematics

Stanley's research is on positive scalar curvature and rigidity of manifolds, noncommutative geometry, tools of surgery theory

Jonathan Imber

Jean Glasscock Professor of Sociology

Dr. Imber's research is both sociological and historical, addressing the moral and ethical foundations of modern medicine and the role that religious authority has played in defining the medical vocation.

Kathryn Lynch

Professor of English

Kathryn (“Cappy”) Lynch has been a member of the Wellesley College faculty since 1983. Her primary research area is medieval English literature, with specialties in medieval dream poetry and in Chaucer.

Past Visiting Scholars

Delaram Farzaneh

Visiting Fellow

Dr. Delaram Farzaneh, S.J.D., is a human rights scholar and lawyer. Her research focuses on a range of human rights issues in Iran. This includes comprehensive scholarship on women's rights. Her newly published book, Judgeships in Iran: Step Down, You are a Woman - A Legal Analysis of International Human Rights, is a comprehensive critique of Iran’s gender-based discrimination against women.

Mustafa Akyol

Senior Visiting Fellow

Mustafa Akyol is a Turkish journalist and author with acclaimed books such as "Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty" (2011) and "The Islamic Jesus" (2017). He is a monthly contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, a TED speaker, and a frequent voice in global live and print media.

Nazan Bedirhanoglu

Interim Director (former) & Post-Doctoral Fellow in Political Science

Nazan Bedirhanoglu is the Interim Director of the Freedom Project and a post-doctoral fellow in the Political Science Department.

Joshua McCabe

Associate Director (Former)

Joshua McCabe is the former associate director of the Freedom Project. He is now an assistant professor of sociology and the assistant dean for social sciences at Endicott College. He is an expert on tax and social policy and author of The Fiscalization of Social Policy: How Taxpayers Trumped Children in the Fight Against Child Poverty (Oxford University Press).

J.P. Messina

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

J.P. Messina is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Freedom Project. He received his PhD in philosophy in 2018 from the University of California, San Diego.

Luke Sheahan

Associate Director

Luke C. Sheahan is Associate Director and Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Freedom Project. He researches the intersection of the First Amendment and political theory to understand how the rights enshrined in the First Amendment negotiate the relationship between liberalism and democracy.

Caryn Sowa

Program Manager of the Freedom Project

Caryn Sowa works closely with the speakers, faculty, visiting scholars and Adam Smith fellows to manage the program and all events of the Freedom Project.

Serhan Tanriverdi

Post-Doctoral Fellow

Serhan Tanriverdi is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Freedom Project at Wellesley College. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. from Loyola University Chicago. He completed his B.A. at Istanbul University in Turkey.

Shingirai Taodzera

Interim Director (Former) and Research Fellow

Shingirai is a political economist and international development specialist. His work is on the intersection of extractive natural resource economies and configurations of political power, good governance, and human rights, with special focus on East and Southern Africa. He holds a PhD in International Development from the University of Ottawa.