Jane Dammen McAuliffe

Jane Dammen McAuliffe was appointed Dean of the College at Georgetown University in 1999.  She is also a tenured Professor in the Department of History and the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies. Dr. McAuliffe held previous appointments at Emory University as professor and associate dean and at the University of Toronto as Chair of the Department for the Study of Religion and Professor of Islamic Studies in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations.  She received her BA in Philosophy and Classics from Trinity College, Washington, D.C. and her MA in religious studies and PhD in Islamic studies from the University of Toronto.

Research and publication

Dr. McAuliffe is an internationally known scholar of Islamic studies.  Her numerous publications have focused primarily on the Qur'an and its interpretation, on early Islamic history and on the multiple relations between Islam and Christianity.  Titles includeQur'anic Christians: An Analysis of Classical and Modern Exegesis (Cambridge, 1991),Abbasid Authority Affirmed: The Early Years of al-Mansur (SUNY, 1995),With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Oxford, 2003), andThe Cambridge Companion to the Qur'an (Cambridge, 2006).  She recently completed the six-volumeEncyclopaedia of the Qur'an (Brill, 2001-2006), the first such reference work in Western languages.  Dr. McAuliffe is co-editor of a book series published by Brill Publishers and a member of several editorial boards.  In 2004, she served as president of the American Academy of Religion, the elected leadership position for this 10,000 member professional organization.  Professor McAuliffe's work has been supported by prestigious fellowships, including those from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Guggenheim Foundation.

Professional and personal

Dr. McAuliffe has long been active in various forms and forums of Muslim-Christian dialogue, on both the national and international levels, and served for ten years on the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims.  She has also been on the boards of the American Academy of Religion, the Association of Theological Schools, and the Center for Applied Research on the Apostolate.  In 2005 she was appointed to the Board of Trustees of Trinity University in Washington, DC.  Dr. McAuliffe is married to Dr. Dennis McAuliffe, a scholar of medieval Italian literature at Georgetown University.  They areparents of four children.

Taken from: http://www3.georgetown.edu