Tricia C. Bruce, Ph.D. is a sociologist, researcher, and award-winning author of several non-fiction books and high-impact research reports. She holds expertise in religion (specializing in U.S. Catholicism) and social change (attentive to attitudes, organizations, and generational change).

Dr. Bruce is the author of Our Lives: What Abortion Attitudes Reveal About Who We Are As Americans (University of California Press, forthcoming August 2026); Parish and Place: Making Room for Diversity in the American Catholic Church (Oxford University Press, 2017); and Faithful Revolution: How Voice of the Faithful Is Changing the Church (Oxford University Press, 2011/2014). She is also coeditor of Polarization in the US Catholic Church (Liturgical Press, 2016) and American Parishes: Remaking Local Catholicism (Fordham University Press, 2019). Her writing has appeared in Time Magazine, Science Advances, The Wall Street Journal, LA Times, Religions, Journal for the American Academy of Religion, Review of Religious Research, U.S. Catholic Historian, and more.

Dr. Bruce holds an MA and PhD in sociology from the University of California at Santa Barbara and a BA in sociology and communication from Southwestern University. She is a Senior Research Fellow with the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies; a 2025-2026 Affiliate with the Center for the Study of Religion and Society of the University of Notre Dame; and served as a papal-appointed Consultor to the Vatican’s General Secretariat of the Synod. She is President-Elect of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR); Past-President (2024-2025) of the Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR); and Past-Chair (2022-2023) of the American Sociological Association Religion Section. Prior appointments include Director of Springtide Research Institute, tenured Associate Professor of Sociology at Maryville College, and Research Assistant Professor with Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA).

Inquire about Dr. Bruce’s availability for research, consultation, public lectures, webinars, podcasts, classroom visits, and media appearances.

Dr. Bruce resides in Knoxville, Tennessee, where you’ll find her singing & playing guitar, running marathons or in barre class, drinking vanilla lattes, walking the town with Brandon, and adventuring through life with her 14- and 16-year old.

Dr. Bruce has been honored by book awards, research awards, community awards, and grants from organizations including the following: