Stuart A. Wright
Stuart A. Wright is an American Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Department of Sociology, Social Work and Criminal Justice at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas who has served as a legal expert in several high profile trials in the United States. Biography. Wright is a former National Institutes of Mental Health Research Fellow (Yale University), Rockefeller Foundation Scholar (Bellagio, Italy), and a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study, part of the Norwegian Academy of Science & Letters, in Oslo. In 2000, Lamar recognized Wright with a career achievement award as University Scholar. Wright has  authored over fifty publications in scholarly books and journals. He is known internationally for his research on religious and political movements, conflict and violence. Wright has been recently working on a book project analyzing how religions die or dissolve. "The Demise of Religion: How Religions End, Die or Dissipate" (with Michael Stausberg and Carol M. Cusack) will be published by Bloomsbury Academic Publishers in London, December 2020. Wright has published seven books, including Wright also serves as legal expert in his field. He has testified in Congressional hearings on state-sect conflict and served as an advisor to the FBI ’s FBI Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG). Wright worked as an expert or consultant in the Branch Davidian criminal and civil trials, the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh, the dragging death of James Byrd, Jr. and the trials of polygamists after the Texas raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints YFZ Ranch in 2008. Dr. Wright has served on the Executive Councils of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR), the Religious Research Association (RRA) and the Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR). He has served on the Board of  Directors for the Association for the Academic Study of New Religions (AASNR) since its inception in 2001.