Biography

Todd W. Ferguson is the Director of the Social Sciences Quantitative Methods Program and an Assistant Teaching Professor of Sociology. He leads the undergraduate social statistics curriculum and loves training students to use large amounts of data to make discoveries about our social world.

As a sociologist of religion, Todd specializes in studying congregations and leaders in religious communities. In his 2022 book STUCK, he analyzed interviews of clergy who no longer wanted to lead their congregations. He and his co-author discovered that these pastors weren’t suffering from psychological burnout or a loss of faith. It was the structure of the profession that led to their alienation from their career and calling. These leaders felt that the congregation was no longer the place where they could follow their calling. They wanted out but felt stuck in the ministry. His other quantitative work has been published in journals such as Social Forces, Social Science Research, and Sociology of Religion. To discover more about his research, please go to his Google Scholar page.

He earned his Ph.D. in sociology at Baylor University and an M.Div. at Duke Divinity School. He received his B.A. in psychology from Baylor University, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Todd is married to Emma, a veterinarian, and they have two beautiful children.