Beth Hurd is Professor and Chair of Religious Studies and Professor of Political Science at Northwestern. She studies religion and politics as expressed through U.S. foreign and immigration policy, American borders, and the U.S. in the Middle East. At Northwestern she co-directs the Global Religion Research Group and manages the Teaching Law & Religion Case Archive.

She is the author of The Politics of Secularism in International Relations (2008) and Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion (2015), both published by Princeton. Her next book, Heaven Has a Wall: Religion, Borders, and the Global United States will be published by the University of Chicago Press in 2025. Beth lives in Evanston with Ian Hurd, their three daughters, two dogs, a tough cat, and an opinionated cockatiel.