Professor Eileen Barker OBE FBA

Eileen Barker, PhDhc (Copenhagen), FAcSS, FBA, OBE, is Professor Emeritus of Sociology with Special Reference to the Study of Religion. Her BSc (Soc) (Hons 1st class) and her PhD were obtained from the LSE. In 2011 she was elected as one of LSE’s Honorary Fellows.

Her main research interest is 'cults', 'sects' and new religious movements, the changes they undergo and the social reactions to which they give rise. Since 1989 she has also been investigating changes in the religious situation in Eastern Europe, Japan and China.

She has over 350 publications, translated into 27 languages. These include the award-winning The Making of a Moonie: Brainwashing or Choice? and New Religious Movements: A Practical Introduction.

She has given guest lectures at over 200 universities around the world, and is a familiar commentator on religious issues on both radio and television. She has been elected as an officer of most of the international organisations related to sociology of religion, being the first non-American to have been elected President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.

In 1988, with the support of the Home Office and the mainstream Churches, she set up INFORM, an independent educational charity affiliated to LSE’s Sociology Department which supplies information about alternative religions that is as objective and up-to-date as possible. LSE students can have access to INFORM's unique resources.