Beth Hurd is Professor and Chair of Religious Studies and Professor of Political Science at Northwestern. She studies religion, politics and public life. She has published books on the politics of secularism, religious freedom, and US borders as American religion. 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 latest book, Heaven Has a Wall: Religion, Borders, and the Global United States was 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.