Rev. Dr. Melody Maxwell

Melody Maxwell is a Roundtable Fellow, Associate Professor of Christian History at Acadia Divinity College, in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada, has filled this role since 2018, teaching courses in Christian history and Baptist studies. Dr. Maxwell previously worked at Howard Payne University, East Texas Baptist University, Samford University, and Woman’s Missionary Union. She holds degrees from Union University (BA), Beeson Divinity School at Samford University (MDiv), and the University of Wales (International Baptist Theological Seminary, PhD). Dr. Maxwell’s research interests include Baptist history, women in ministry, missions history, and global Baptists. She is the author of numerous articles as well as two books: Doing the Word: Southern Baptists’ Carver School of Social Work and Its Predecessors, 1907-1997 (co-authored with Laine Scales; University of Tennessee Press, 2019) and The Woman I Am: Southern Baptist Women’s Writings, 1906–2006 (University of Alabama Press, 2014). Dr. Maxwell serves as chair of the Baptist World Alliance’s Commission on Baptist Heritage and Identity and as Director of the Acadia Centre of Baptist and Anabaptist Studies, among other leadership roles. In 2020 she received the Acadia Students’ Union Teaching Recognition Award, and she has also received multiple grants for her research. Her current research, funded by a $55,000 grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, focuses on oral histories of ordained Atlantic Baptist women since 1950.