Susan J. Palmer is an Affiliate Professor at Concordia University, where she teaches. She is also a Member of the Religious Studies Faculty at McGill University and Cochercheure at le Centred'expertise et de formation sur les intégrismes religieux et la radicalisation (CEFIR) at the Cégep Édouard-Montpetit.
Her research in the field of new religious movements has been funded by six federal grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). In April 2017 she was awarded a five-year Insight Grant (SSHRC).
Palmer has published eleven book-length sociological studies of new religious movements, notably: The New Heretics of France (Oxford University Press 2011); Aliens Adored: Rael’s New Religion (Rutgers 2004); Moon Sisters, Krishna Mothers, Rajneesh Lovers (Syracuse, 1994); and Storming Zion: Government Raids on Religious Communities (Oxford 2015), co-authored with Stuart Wright.
