Kate Holbrook

Kate Holbrook is a leading voice in the study of Mormon women and Mormon foodways. As the historian manager of the women’s history team at the LDS Church History Department, she writes, studies, and interprets history full-time. Her major research interests are 1) the practice of everyday religion, how religious beliefs and affiliation impact the ways people eat, speak, and behave; and 2) women’s participation in the theological and institutional development of their religious institutions.

Holbrook was voted Harvard College’s Teaching Fellow of the Year for her work in a course that enrolled nearly six hundred students, and she co-edited Global Values 101: A Short Course, based on that class. Her master’s degree, from Harvard Divinity School, is in the study of world religions and her PhD, from Boston University, is in the study of religion and society. Harvard University, Boston University, Brigham Young University, and the Roothbert Fellowship have all awarded her fellowships and grants for her academic work. She also received the first Eccles Fellowship in Mormon Studies at the University of Utah to examine the foodways of American religious groups.

She is currently revising the resulting dissertation, Radical Food: Nation of Islam and Latter-day Saint Culinary Ideals (1930–1980), for publication. Her published work also includes chapters in edited volumes for university presses such as Oxford and Columbia.