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About the Foundation

Mission Statement

Supporting The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through scholarship.

The Interpreter Foundation supports the Church in the following ways:

  • Promotion: We provide tools to encourage and facilitate personal learning by study and faith, and disseminate accurate information to the public about the Church.
  • Explanation: We make the results of relevant scholarship more accessible to non-specialists.
  • Defense: We respond to misunderstandings and criticisms of Church beliefs, policies, and practices.
  • Faithfulness: Our leadership, staff, and associates strive to follow Jesus Christ and be true to the teachings of His Church.
  • Scholarship: Our leadership, staff, and associates incorporate standards of scholarship appropriate to their academic disciplines.

The Interpreter Foundation is an independent organization that supports but is not owned, controlled by, or affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The material published by the Interpreter Foundation is the sole responsibility of the respective authors and should not be interpreted as representing the views of The Interpreter Foundation or of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Interpreter Foundation exists because of the generous support of a wide range of volunteers and staff.
This mash-up of a good number of our volunteers was created in celebration of our tenth anniversary.
Daniel C. Peterson

Daniel C. Peterson

President

About Dan…

Daniel C. Peterson (PhD, University of California at Los Angeles) is a professor emeritus of Islamic studies and Arabic at Brigham Young University, where he founded the University’s Middle Eastern Texts Initiative. He has published and spoken extensively on both Islamic and Latter-day Saint subjects. Formerly chairman of the board of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) and an officer, editor, and author for its successor organization, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, his professional work as an Arabist focuses on the Qur’an and on Islamic philosophical theology. He is the author, among other things, of a biography entitled Muhammad: Prophet of God (Eerdmans, 2007).
Jeffrey M. Bradshaw

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw

Vice President of Special Projects

About Jeff…

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (PhD, Cognitive Science, University of Washington) is a Senior Research Scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) in Pensacola, Florida (www.ihmc.us/groups/jbradshaw; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_M._Bradshaw). His professional writings have explored a wide range of topics in human and machine intelligence (www.jeffreymbradshaw.net). Jeff has been the recipient of several awards and patents and has been an adviser for initiatives in science, defense, space, industry, and academia worldwide. Jeff has written detailed commentaries on the Book of Moses and Genesis 1–11 and on temple themes in the scriptures. For Church-related publications, see www.TempleThemes.net. Jeff was a missionary in France and Belgium from 1975–1977, and his family has returned twice to live in France. He and his wife, Kathleen, are the parents of four children and sixteen grandchildren. From July 2016-September 2019, Jeff and Kathleen served missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo Kinshasa Mission office and the DR Congo Kinshasa Temple. They currently live in Nampa, Idaho. As a church service missionary for the Church History Department, Jeff is writing histories of the temples in Kinshasa, Lubumbashi, and Kananga, and for Interpreter he is working with RedBrick Filmworks to document the history of the Church in the DR Congo on film.
Steven T. Densley, Jr.

Steven T. Densley, Jr.

Executive Vice President

About Steve…

Steve Densley, Jr. is a Utah attorney (J.D., Brigham Young University). He graduated with University Honors from BYU with a combined B.A./M.A. in public policy and political science. As an undergraduate, he was an assistant editor of the Pi Sigma Alpha Review. In law school, he was a member of the Law Review and the National Moot Court team. He has published articles in the Utah Bar Journal, the Journal of Law and Family Studies, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, Public Square Magazine, and Meridian Magazine. He has been recognized in SuperLawyers Magazine as one of the Mountain States Rising Stars and has been listed numerous times in Utah Business Magazine as among the Utah Legal Elite. He was the Executive Vice President of FAIR from 2013-15 and, recipient of the John Taylor Defender of the Faith Award, and was a producer of FAIR’s podcast when it twice won the People’s Choice Award for Best Podcast in the Religion & Spirituality category. He is also an award-winning photographer and a certified travel agent. He served a Hmong-speaking mission in the California Sacramento Mission. He and his wife Heather are the parents of four children and have two granddaughters.
Allen Wyatt

Allen Wyatt

Vice President of Operations

About Allen…

Allen Wyatt, an internationally recognized expert in small computer systems, has written more than 60 books explaining different facets of working with computers. He is the president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company.

Before serving with the Interpreter Foundation, Allen served as vice president of FAIR and founding president of the More Good Foundation. He has written articles for the FARMS Review and various online venues, including Meridian Magazine.

Larry K. Ainsworth

Larry K. Ainsworth

About Larry…

Larry K. Ainsworth (MPA, BYU) is a retired hospital Chief Executive Officer. Most of his career as a healthcare executive was with market-leading faith-based general acute-care hospitals. Larry served as chairman of the board of the Hospital Executives of Southern California and received several industry awards. His most fulfilling achievements related to improving pediatric healthcare. He led a financial turnaround of Orange County’s only children’s hospital, sparing it from bankruptcy, and he led an initiative to use hospital resources to fund the enrollment of all 60,000 uninsured children in Medicaid. He managed several large hospital construction projects, expanding patient care and outpatient specialty centers.

For over fifteen years Larry and his wife Laura served on BYU’s Community Volunteer Councils for the Neal A Maxwell Institute and the Department of Nursing. The exposure they gained to testimony-strengthening scholarly publications that defend the faith developed into a passion. Larry serves as chair of the Interpreter Advisory Council. He served a mission in the British/England East Mission. He and his wife served the YSA in the same mission from 2012-2014. Larry and Laura are the parents of three sons and have 21 grandchildren.

Matthew L. Bowen

Matthew L. Bowen

About Matt…

Matthew L. Bowen was raised in Orem, Utah, and graduated from Brigham Young University. He holds a PhD in Biblical Studies from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, and is currently an associate professor in religious education at Brigham Young University-Hawaii. He is also the author of Name as Key-Word: Collected Essays on Onomastic Wordplay and The Temple in Mormon Scripture (Salt Lake City: Interpreter Foundation and Eborn Books, 2018). With Aaron P. Schade, he is the coauthor of The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT; Salt Lake City: Religious Studies Center and Deseret Book, 2021). He and his wife (the former Suzanne Blattberg) are the parents of three children: Zachariah, Nathan, and Adele.
Kristine Wardle Frederickson

Kristine Wardle Frederickson

About Kris…

Kristine Wardle Frederickson (PhD, History, University of Utah) has taught over 25 university courses in the History, Women’s Studies, Honors, and Religion departments at Brigham Young University and Utah Valley University. She was an op-ed writer for ten years for The Deseret News and Mormon Times. She is the author of Extraordinary Courage: Women Empowered by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She has published on a wide range of historical and religious topics in books, periodicals, and presented at numerous conferences. Her areas of expertise include Modern European History (emphasis on nineteenth-century Britain), American History, Women’s History, and Religious History. She and her husband Reid are the parents of six children and eleven grandchildren.
Jim Graham

Jim Graham

About Jim…

Mr. Graham is co-founder and managing member at Greenberg Graham Advisors LLC headquartered in Irvine California. Started in 2003, the firm advises clients on all aspects of wealth management, including counseling families preparing subsequent generations to be responsible stewards of significant wealth. He has an extensive background in the areas of investment planning and management, estate planning and income tax planning. His clients have included successful entrepreneurs, senior executives, entertainers, professional athletes, and beneficiaries. Prior to 2003, Mr. Graham held senior positions with some the country’s most respected trust banks and financial services firms.

Mr. Graham received his bachelor’s degree in finance from Brigham Young University and he has completed extensive post-graduate coursework in his professional field. He and his wife enjoy traveling together and spending time with their children and grandchildren. They are active in their church and community having focused much of their community work with organizations that support the arts and address the needs of underserved children and teenagers.

Jeffrey Dean Lindsay

Jeffrey Dean Lindsay

About Jeff…

Jeffrey Dean Lindsay recently returned to the United States after almost 9 years in Shanghai, China. Jeff has been providing online materials defending the LDS faith for over twenty years, primarily at JeffLindsay.com and http://mormanity.blogspot.com.

Jeff has a PhD in chemical engineering from BYU and is a US patent agent. He is currently Senior Advisor for ipCapital Group, assisting clients in creating intellectual property and innovation. He was recently the Head of R&D and IP for a US consumer product company, Lume Deodorant, and from 2011 to 2019 was the Head of Intellectual Property for Asia Pulp and Paper in Shanghai, China, one of the world’s largest forest product companies. Since 2015, Jeff has been recognized as a leading IP strategist by Intellectual Asset Magazine based on peer input. He is also lead author of Conquering Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009). Jeff served a mission in the German speaking Switzerland Zurich Mission. He and his wife Kendra are the parents of four boys and have eleven grandchildren.

Shirley Smith Ricks

Shirley Smith Ricks

About Shirley…

Shirley Smith Ricks (PhD, family studies, BYU) has worked since 1989 as an editor at the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, and retired from the Religious Studies Center at BYU in 2021. She has helped produce numerous books and periodicals, including several volumes of the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley. Shirley has published a number of articles and reviews. In 2019 she was the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award in Editing and Design presented by the Latter-day Saint Publishing and Media Association. Shirley served a mission in the Germany South Mission. She and her husband, Stephen D. Ricks, have attended all the temples in the United States and Canada and enjoy traveling, especially to visit their six children and spouses and their twenty grandchildren.
Godfrey Ellis

Godfrey Ellis

Associate Editor

Jeffrey D. Lindsay

Jeffrey D. Lindsay

Co-Editor

Tanya Spackman

Tanya Spackman

Manager of Editorial Services

Allen Wyatt

Allen Wyatt

Managing Editor

Kevin Christensen

Kevin Christensen

Brant A. Gardner

Brant A. Gardner

Louis C. Midgley

Louis C. Midgley

George L. Mitton

George L. Mitton

Gregory L. Smith

Gregory L. Smith

Ed Snow

Ed Snow

Ted Vaggalis

Ted Vaggalis

David M. Calabro

David M. Calabro

Craig L. Foster

Craig L. Foster

Taylor Halverson

Taylor Halverson

Benjamin L. McGuire

Benjamin L. McGuire

Tyler R. Moulton

Tyler R. Moulton

Martin S. Tanner

Martin S. Tanner

Bryan J. Thomas

Bryan J. Thomas

John S. Thompson

John S. Thompson

A. Keith Thompson

A. Keith Thompson

Robert S. Boylan

Robert S. Boylan

Benjamin I. Huff

Benjamin I. Huff

Jennifer C. Lane

Jennifer C. Lane

David J. Larsen

David J. Larsen

Ugo A. Perego

Ugo A. Perego

Stephen D. Ricks

Stephen D. Ricks

Lynne Hilton Wilson

Lynne Hilton Wilson

Mark Alan Wright

Mark Alan Wright

Donor Relations

Jann E. Campbell

Legal Advisors

Preston Regehr
Scott Williams

Interpreter Advisory Committee

Larry Ainsworth
Rob Haertel

Interpreter Radio

Matthew Bowen
Kevin Christensen
Steve Densley
Craig Foster
Kris Frederiksen
John Gee
Terry Hutchinson
Mark Johnson
Jasmine Gimenez Rappleye
Neal Rappleye
Stephen Smoot
Hales Swift
Martin Tanner
Bruce Webster

Production Editors and Designers

Jacob Ames
Timothy Guymon
Jacob Harmon
Tom Pittman
Alan Sikes

Editorial Consultants

Eden Buchert
Daniel Evensen
Jolie Griffin
Deidre Marlow
Don Norton
Kaitlin Cooper Swift
Elizabeth Wyatt

Media and Technology

Jacob Ames
Richard Flygare
Mark Johnson
Jacob Harmon
Steve Metcalf
Tyler R. Moulton
Tom Pittman
Russell D. Richins
Alan Sikes
S. Hales Swift
Victor Worth

Donate to the cause

The Interpreter Foundation is a nonprofit organization. All journal publications and video presentations are available for free by digital download and streaming. The price of hard copy versions of journal articles covers only the cost of printing; books are typically priced to help cover both upfront pre-publication expenses and royalties to authors when applicable. In some cases, the Foundation may subsidize publication costs to keep retail prices affordable. The Foundation does not profit from sales of its publications.

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