Margaret M. Poloma has written extensively about the Pentecostal charismatic movement. She analyzes, in particular, how foundational forces of Western thought, modernism, materialism, and instrumental rationality, are challenging its worldview. Now a professor emerita of sociology at The University of Akron, she taught at the Ohio institution for twenty-five years. She is a graduate of Notre Dame College of Ohio and earned her Ph.D. in sociology at Case Western Reserve University in 1970. Since her retirement, she has served as a visiting professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, Ashland Theological Seminary, Oberlin College, and Vanguard University of Southern California. She held a research fellowship from the National Institute of Healthcare Research for eight years and has received major research funding from the Louisville Institute and the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, an organization founded with a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. A member of the steering committee of the Christian Sociological Society (CSS) and of the advisory board of the Lewis Wilson Institute for Pentecostal Studies, Dr. Poloma formerly served as treasurer of the CSS, a member of the council and secretary of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, a director of the Religion Research Association, and on the executive council of the Association for the Sociology of Religion. She has been the guest editor of a special issue, as well as a co-editor of Sociological Focus, editor of the Christian Sociologists Newsletter, an associate editor of the Review of Religion Research, Sociological Analysis, Sociological Inquiry, and the Review of Religious Research, and an advising editor of Spirituality & Health. She is currently an associate editor of Pneuma: The Journal for the Society of Pentecostal Studies and a contributing editor of the Journal of Psychology and Theology. The author more than fifty articles in scholarly journals and chapters in volumes of edited works, she is the co-editor of one book, the co-author of four books, and the author of four others, including The Assemblies of God at the Crossroads: Charisma and Institutional Dilemmas (1989) and, most recently, Main Street Mystics: The Toronto Blessing and Reviving Pentecostalism, which was published last year by AltaMira Press.