Hjelm is Professor in the Study of Religion at the University of Helsinki. Previously he was Reader in Sociology at University College London. His research interests include religion and social change, religion and politics, social theory, and methodology of the social sciences. In addition to RELIACT, he is currently the PI of the Academy of Finland funded project The Re­li­gious Le­git­im­a­tion of Polit­ics and the Polit­ical Le­git­im­a­tion of Re­li­gion in Fin­land (Le­git­Rel) (2020–2024). Hjelm has published multiple books, including Elements of Research Design (Policy Press, 2024) and Peter L. Berger on Religion: The Social Reality of Religion (Routledge, 2024), and many articles in the field of sociology religion, in journals such as The Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, Religion, Critical Sociology, and Media, Culture & Society. He is the Editor in Chief of Sociology of Religion and former President of the Finnish Society for the Study of Religion.

email: titus.hjelm@helsinki.fi

website: link

Ph.D. in Sociology, Karimi has worked on various topics related to lived citizenship, forced migration, critical race studies, transnational family life, the racialization of Islam and more recently sociology of religion and secularization. She is the first editor of the book Rethinking Integration (2023). Karimi’s research has been published in journals such as Ethnic and Racial Studies, Nordic Journal of Migration Research, and Middle East Critique.

email: zeinab.karimi@helsinki.fi

website: link

Ph.D. in Study of Religion, Äystö has focused on societal topics such as politics, media, and law. His dissertation (2019) addressed the contemporary Nordic blasphemy law, and he has since studied religion in the Finnish parliament and various religion-related “culture war” topics, such as abortion, freedom of religion, and secularization.

email: tuomas.aysto@helsinki.fi

website: link

Ph.D. in Study of Religion, Haimila’s work has engaged with several topics linked to secularization, such as secular worldviews and their diversity, the relationship between belief in science and supernatural beliefs, and factors underlying nonreligion and atheism. Haimila is one of the editors of Secularism and Nonreligion and of the book Uskonto mielessä: Psykologisia näkökulmia uskontoon ja henkisyyteen (2024).

email: roosa.haimila@helsinki.fi

website: link

Jenna Kuronen is a PhD student in the Study of Religion at the University of Helsinki. Her doctoral research examines modern myths of the Finnish dairy industry through multimodal critical discourse analysis. She investigates how religion-like structures operate in a secular society, particularly through the persistence of myths. She is interested in how ‘myth literacy’ could contribute to broader debates on food culture and human–animal relations.

email: jenna.kuronen@helsinki.fi

website: link