Alumni News

If you majored in Religious Studies at LSU, please take a moment to let us know what you are doing now. We love hearing about all of your successes!

Religious Studies Alumni

Joey Abel (2003), an MSW working at the Council on Aging in Asheville, NC.

Elizabeth Adler (2009), an MSW at Gusto in Denver.

Tarini Alapati (2017), a first-year student at LSU Medical School (as of fall 2017).

David Albano (2016), a second-year student at LSU Law School (as of fall 2017).

Michael Alello (2003), ordained priest and pastor at St. Louis King of France School in Baton Rouge.

Mikaela Allen (2017), a first-year student at Harvard Divinity School (as of fall 2017).

Dillard Mills Baker (2004), a product design manager at Quora.

Roy Bergeron (2006) graduated summa cum laude from LSU with majors in religious studies and political science. In May 2011, he graduated magna cum laude and Order of the Coif from the LSU Law Center. He was a Senior Editor of the Louisiana Law Review, where his article “Faith on the Farm: An Analysis of Angola Prison's Moral Rehabilitation Program Under the Establishment Clause” was recently published. He worked at Phelps Dunbar, LLP in Baton Rouge in the area of environmental law, then went to work as an attorney with Simien & Simien Law Firm in Baton Rouge. Roy wrote, “I really do credit the religious studies curriculum with helping me get as far as I have. Being challenged to do more intensive reading and prepare writing assignments geared toward an analysis of those readings (rather than just a summary) prepared me for law school in a way that I think few other programs could have. I couldn't be happier about my time at LSU.”

Timothy Chutz (2004), a teacher in the Religion Department at Catholic High School, Baton Rouge. 

Adel C. Comeaux (2010), co-founder of the Riveters Theatre Company in Lafayette.

Gabriela McCall Delgado (2011), launched the We Connect Now (WCN) website in 2008 with a grant received from YP4. Gabriela conceived the project while in high school, and she was able to realize it as a freshman in college.  She founded We Connect Now, a not-for-profit organization, in April 2011. WCN website was created to address two issues of primary concern to Gabriela: the lack of a centralized site on the Internet with basic information regarding rights, services, and support for college students with disabilities; and the absence of a network that could provide additional information and support to such students. We Connect Now has been featured in numerous newspaper articles, on the radio, by podcast, on social media and has been linked to by hundreds of websites. Maintaining an independent stance, We Connect Now has received no funding from the government or for-profit corporations. It has sparked discussion of disability issues at the grassroots level as well as among those who determine public policy regarding those concerns.

Elizabeth Dequeant (2002), the environment project coordinator at the Louisiana DEQ.

Stephen DiLorenzo (2008) was commissioned in the Army and worked in the ROTC program at LSU for 9 months. He then attended flight school at Fort Rucker, Alabama for 2 years. After graduation in 2011, he enrolled in an online master's program from Troy University in International Relations. In 2014, he was accepted to teach philosophy at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He was one of six accepted out of more than 300 applicants. He will start a graduate program in the fall of 2015 and teach at West Point from 2017-2020.

Andye Lynn Dodd (2015), a third-year M. Div. student at Emory University (as of fall 2017).

April A. Erwin (1998) earned a master's degree at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and an M.D. at LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. She completed her medical internship and neurology residency at Georgetown University Hospital. She has been a neurologist at the NeuroMedical Center in Baton Rouge since 2012.

Adelaide Farrow (2014), a realtor with Keller Williams in Atlanta.

Danae Faulk (2010), a third-year Ph.D. student in Religious Studies at Syracuse University (as of fall 2017).

Beauregard Fiegel (2007), an attorney in San Antonio..

Erin Gandy (2002), an occupational therapist at the Touro Infirmy in New Orleans.

Julie Ginther (2008), campus minister at George Washington University.

Jesse George (2005), an attorney for the Alliance for Affordable Energy, New Orleans.

Michael Gueno (2003), an assistant professor of Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater.

Sterling Kelley (2003), an industry analyst at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Heather Killough-Walden (1997) is a successful writer. She is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling e-book author of the Big Bad Wolf series and the October Trilogy. Her tenth novel was published recently with Kindle Books. Heather’s husband, Eric Walden, wrote, “she really used the stuff she learned about religion at LSU. So you have a graduate of your program who is doing very well for herself using what you taught her.”  See Heather's page at Amazon.

Audrey Landry (2016), in national service as a second-year member of the Louisiana Delta Service Corps (as of fall 2017).

Matthew Landry, after receiving a degree in Religious Studies, picked up a second degree in Geography. He is now a sales representative for ESRI and sells mapping software to state and local government organizations. He currently resides in Redlands, California. Matthew wrote to Stu Irvine, “You once told me that in the field of Religious Studies the written form is the medium of communication and if I plan on being successful then I would need to learn to write well. I believe that I am a better writer now because of how thorough you were in grading our essays. In fact, I was told by my company that the reason I was selected out of the hundreds of applicants was because of my strongly written cover letter. Even though I'm not a Religious Studies scholar today, these skills have carried over into my daily work. . .  I would not be where I am today had you not taught me to think about writing.”

Lucas L. Lognion (2016), a second-year M.A. student in Religious Studies at the University of Colorado (as of fall 2017).

Donna Lormand (2006), associate editor for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Grant Maher (2007), an MBA working as an account executive at Star Services Inc. in Houston.

Michael Scott Manning (2005), a teacher in the Religion Department at Catholic High School, Baton Rouge.

Kimberly Mansur (2010) is pursuing a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science at LSU.

Matthew Mears (2008), administrative assistant in the Office of the President, UnidosUS, the USA’s largest Latino nonprofit advocacy organization.

Tammy Oropesa (2010) is pursuing the Master of Fine Arts degree in film production at the University of New Orleans.

Michael Pasquier (2002), associate professor of Religious Studies at LSU.

Brant Pitre (1997) is Professor of Sacred Scripture at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. After gaining an M.T.S. at Vanderbilt Divinity School in 1999, he received his Ph.D. in Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity from the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, in 2004. He is the author of Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile (Baker, 2006) and of Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist (Image, 2011). See Brant's website.

Alexander Plaisance (2007) earned a second Bachelor’s degree from LSU, in Psychology. He plans to begin as a Ph.D. student in Psychology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2012.

Cristina Ramirez (1998) earned an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas, Austin; a Master’s degree in Library and information Science in special collections at the Catholic University of America; and a Masters of Public Administration at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is currently a doctoral student in Education and a collection librarian at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Kodi Roberts (2001), assistant professor of History at LSU.

Ashton Robertson (2014), a communications specialist (PR) for Duke University, University Clinical and Translational Science Institute.

Jonathan M. Robker (2003) earned an M.A. in Religion at Duke Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Old Testament at the University of Erlangen. He then received a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Muenster, subsequently working there as an instructor. His book, The Jehu Revolution: A Royal Tradition of the Northern Kingdom and Its Ramifications, was published in the prestigious Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fuer die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (De Gruyter: Berlin, 2012). 

Joseph Rochelle (2003), an attorney in Destrehan.

James Cameron Rose (2004), a physician in New Orleans.

Nicolette Ruzicka (2014), a fourth-year student at LSU Medical School (as of fall 2017).

Colin T. Ryan (2010), an attorney with the Womac Law Firm in New Orleans.

Hannah Samson (2013), a third-year student at the University of California Berkeley School of Law (as of fall 2017).

Dylan G. Schexnaydre (2016), a second-year student in the M.A. program in Islam at Columbia University (as of fall 2017).

Jennifer Schwartzberg (2005), the education coordinator at the Historic New Orleans Collection.

Amisha Sharma (2001), an attorney working as associate counsel for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in New Orleans.

Joanna Shepherd (2007), a yoga instructor at the Birth Center of Baton Rouge.

McKay Stevens (2021), was accepted into Vanderbilt's Master of Theological Studies (MTS) program with a funding package to support her studies.

Stacy Swenson (2000), the principal at ELM Consulting in New Orleans.

Christine Taylor (2004), an architect with Pfluger Architects.

John (T. J.) Thames (2004) earned the M.A. in Philosophy at LSU and the M.A.R. at Yale Divinity School.  He received his Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible and Northwest Semitic Philology from the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University in 2016. He then began to work as an instructor at Yale Divinity School. In 2019 he took the position of Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Clemson University and published his first book, The Politics of Ritual Change: The zukru Festival in the Political History of Late Bronze Age Emar,  in the Harvard Semitic Monographs series.

Mitchell Thomas (2002), a middle-school teacher at the Western Academy in Houston.

Jeffrey Weltman (2007), a systems administrator at Southern Methodist University.

Louis Westereng (2004) is pursuing an M.A. in History at LSU.

Anderson Wingfield (2006), a chemical health-care case manager at the Vinland National Center, for drug and alcohol addiction treatment.

Adrienne Zetty (2005) worked for Co-Op Bookstore in Baton Rouge, before moving to Florida. She served on the Board of Directors for Dialogue on Race, Louisiana.