About the Foundation

Daniel C. Peterson

Chairman and President

Daniel C. Peterson (Ph.D., UCLA) is a professor of Islamic studies and Arabic at Brigham Young University and founder of the university’s Middle Eastern Texts Initiative. He has published and spoken extensively on both Islamic and Mormon 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

Vice President

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 (see Wikipedia). His professional writings have explored a wide range of topics in human and machine intelligence.

Jeff was a missionary in France and Belgium from 1975–1977. He has served twice as a bishop and twice as a counselor in the stake presidency of the Pensacola Florida Stake. He has published books and articles on the book of Moses and Genesis 1-11, temple studies and the ancient Near East. He and his wife, Kathleen, are the parents of four children and twelve grandchildren. In June 2018, they finished two years of service in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kinshasa Mission.

Steven T. Densley, Jr.

Vice President

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. He has published articles in the Utah Bar Journal, the Journal of Law and Family Studies, and Meridian Magazine. He was the Executive Vice President of FairMormon from 2013-15 and, recipient of the John Taylor Defender of the Faith Award, and was producer of FairMormon’s podcast when it twice won the People’s Choice Award for Best Podcast in the Religion & Spirituality category.

Noel Reynolds

Vice President

Noel Reynolds (PhD, Harvard University) is an emeritus professor of political science at Brigham Young University, where he taught a broad range of courses in legal and political philosophy, American Heritage, and the Book of Mormon. His research and publications are based in these fields and several others, including authorship studies, Mormon history, Christian history and theology, and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Allen Wyatt

Vice President

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.

Kevin Christensen

Kevin Christensen has been a technical writer since 1984, since 2004 working in Pittsburgh, PA. He has a B.A. in English from San Jose State University. He has published articles in Dialogue, Sunstone, the FARMS Review of Books, the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Insights, Meridian Magazine, Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, and, in collaboration with Margaret Barker, an essay in Joseph Smith Jr.: Reappraisals after Two Centuries.

Brant A. Gardner

Brant A. Gardner (M.A. State University of New York Albany) is the author of Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon and The Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon, both published through Greg Kofford Books. He has contributed articles to Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl and Symbol and Meaning Beyond the Closed Community. He has presented papers at the FairMormon conference as well as at Sunstone.

Jeff Lindsay

Jeffrey Dean Lindsay and his wife, Kendra, are residents of Shanghai, China. Jeff has been providing online materials defending the LDS faith for over twenty years. He also wrote weekly for Orson Scott Card’s Nauvoo Times from 2012 through 2016. Jeff has a PhD in chemical engineering from BYU and is a registered US patent agent. He serves as Head of Intellectual Property for Asia Pulp and Paper, one of the world’s largest paper companies. Since 2015, Jeff has been recognized as a leading IP strategist by Intellectual Asset Magazine in their global IAM300 listing based on peer input.

Louis C. Midgley

Louis Midgley (Ph.D. Brown University) is an emeritus professor of political science at Brigham Young University. He has an abiding interest in both dogmatic and systematic theology and the alternatives to both, as weel as an interest in the ways in which communities of faith have responded to the challenges posed by modernity to faith in God grounded on divine special revelation.

George L. Mitton

George L. Mitton received a master’s degree in political science from Utah State University and did additional graduate studies at the University of Utah and Columbia University. He is retired from a career in education and state government in Oregon. He served for a decade as an associate editor of FARMS Review and has published there, in Dialogue, and in BYU Studies.

Gregory L. Smith

Gregory Smith studied research physiology and English at the University of Alberta. After earning his MD, he completed his residency in family medicine at St. Mary’s Hospital in Montréal, Québec. He now practices rural family medicine in Alberta, with interests in internal medicine and psychiatry. He holds an appointment as an Associate Clinical Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Calgary.

Ed Snow

Ed Snow was a Donor Liaison for over 15 years with LDS Philanthropies. He spent 13 of those years fundraising for FARMS and the Maxwell Institute. Prior to LDSP, Ed was the Director of Development for the Delaware-based Intercollegiate Studies Institute. He also worked on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., as a press aide for two congressmen and a speechwriter for a senator. Ed received a bachelor’s degree in German and a master’s degree in International Relations from BYU.

Tanya Spackman

Tanya Spackman is technical writer/editor in Washington, DC, supporting various corners of the military. She received a degree from Brigham Young University in molecular biology.

Ted Vaggalis

Ted Vaggalis is Associate Professor of Political Science at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri. He received a BA in Political Science at Brigham Young University and his MA and PhD in Philosophy from the University of Kansas. His areas of interest include the overlap between hermeneutics and political philosophy, which includes the history of ethics and political philosophy, continental philosophy, Leo Strauss’ political thought, and Rawls’ political liberalism.