Editors Isabelle Darmon, Lisa McCormick and Nick Prior are delighted to welcome Dr María Angélica Thumala Olave to the editorial team for the journal Cultural Sociology. Dr Thumala is currently Lecturer in Global Sociology and programme co-director of the MSc in Sociology and Global Change at the University of Edinburgh. She also maintains a consulting position with the World Bank and a visiting appointment at her alma mater, the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.

Dr Thumala’s research in the sociology of religion, elites, consumption, and reading has appeared in the American Journal of Cultural Sociology, Social Compass, The Sociological Review, the British Journal of Sociology, and Theoretical Criminology. She also contributed to The Civil Sphere in Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2018) edited by Jeffrey Alexander and Carlo Tognato. Her monograph “Wealth and Piety: The Catholicism of Chile's Business Elite” (Riqueza y Piedad. El Catolicismo de la elite económica chilena, 2007, Sanitago: Debate) has been identified by the Chilean newspaper, La Nación, as one of the twelve best sources for understanding the country’s elite.

Cultural Sociology has recently added a new section which offers perspectives on cultural sociological traditions, fields, scenes or worlds around the globe. Dr Thumala will be overseeing the “regional spotlight articles” from Latin America.