Dr. Rosalynde Frandsen Welch has accepted an appointment as a research fellow at Brigham Young University’s Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. Dr. Welch will also serve as the Institute’s associate director, replacing Dr. Philip Barlow, who returns after years of dedicated administrative service to the Institute’s regular faculty. Welch’s tenure officially begins on July 1, 2022.
Dr. Welch holds a Ph.D. in early modern English Literature from the University of California at San Diego and has written extensively on Latter-day Saint literature, theology, and scripture. Her scholarship has appeared in BYU Studies, the Mormon Studies Review, the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, and numerous edited volumes. Before joining the Institute, she served on its advisory board and as chair of its imprint board. In 2019, she won a short-term research grant at the Institute and served as co-director to the Latter-day Saint Theology Seminar. She authored Ether: a brief theological introduction (2020) and served as a series editor for The Book of Mormon: brief theological introductions series.
Maxwell Institute executive director J. Spencer Fluhman is thrilled to welcome Dr. Welch to Provo. “Dr. Welch makes a remarkable gathering of Institute scholars even better. She’s a gifted writer and accomplished scholar. As a key member of the Institute’s advisory board, she has helped build the Institute as a force for good. We are all grateful that she has agreed to help lead the Institute into exciting next chapters.”
As associate director, Dr. Welch will help oversee the Institute’s academic programs, publications, and public outreach. Dr. Welch says, “I have admired the Institute’s work for a long time in its various forms. It has been a delight to be involved in its mission over the past few years in small ways, and I am honored now to join the Institute full time. There is no more stimulating, collegial environment in which to pursue my own research and help nurture the work of other disciple scholars. I graduated from BYU 24 years ago, and it’s an unbelievable privilege to now mentor students and contribute to the intellectual life of the university as a scholar myself.”
You can order Ether: a brief theological introduction HERE and you can listen to Dr. Welch’s podcast with Jim Faulconer discussing the book HERE.