research directory

Sociology, Sociology of Religion

Cimino, Richard

Albany | United States

Overview

Richard Cimino a visiting professor at the State University of New York at Old Westbury. I teach in the sociology department and specialize in the sociology of religion.

My academic research career has been focused on questions and religious and secular identity and vitality and how they have been shaped by forces in modernity, particularly science. My dissertation at the New School for Social Research was a comparative study of American applied scientists in the Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh traditions and the relationship between their religious discourse and their work in technology. My research was published in the book Mystical Science and Practical Religion (Lexington Books, 2014). I have also conducted research on organized secularism in the U.S.., having co-authored several articles on the subject and the book Atheist Awakening: Secularist Activism and Community in America, (Oxford University Press, 2014). In this work, I have looked at how science has been a source of identity and legitimation for atheists in their contestation with religious believers. I would like to continue my research on science, secularism, and religion, and am grateful for the network for the opportunity to develop my research skills and scholarship in this direction.