CV

Occupation

• PhD candidate in sociology
  • University of Lausanne (Switzerland)
  • Supervisor: Prof. Jörg Stolz
  • Thesis: Sacred sequences. How Swiss religious congregations change (cumulative, three empirical articles)
  • Committee: David Eagle (Duke University), Isabella Kasselstrand (University of Aberdeen), Daniel Oesch (UNIL)
  • Working for the second wave of the National Congregation Study Switzerland (NCSS 2)

Key achievements

• Gathered a comprehensive census of local religious groups across all traditions (n ≈ 5,900), systematically combining multiple sources (previous censuses, websites, federation lists, expert interviews, Federal Statistical Office data) and making complex classification decisions (e.g., treating a merger of 32 parishes as 11 countable units)
• Recruited, trained, and supervised 13 student assistants contributing to the census
• Secured data-access agreements and letters of support from 13+ national religious federations
• Co-designed a multimodal (CATI, CAWI), trilingual (German, French, Italian) questionnaire of 150+ questions; coordinated ~20 cognitive pretests with religious leaders from diverse traditions
• Automated generation of several thousand personalized invitation and reminder letters via Julia
• Collected a nationally representative survey (n ≈ 1,400; 45.4% response rate) with stratified random sampling and targeted oversampling of minority traditions
• Developed multi-level weighting procedures correcting for stratification, oversampling, and complex organizational structures (e.g., Catholic pastoral units)
• Harmonized datasets from both study waves (combined n ≈ 2,400)
• Coordinated a three-institution collaboration (Uni Lausanne, Uni Basel, CIC), managed fieldwork with LINK Institute, and adapted operations to the COVID-19 pandemic
• Authored complete methodological documentation (methodological report, variable dictionary) and published data on SwissUbase
• Published findings in Sociological Science, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and Sociological Forum; disseminated results to general audiences (Le Temps, NZZ, RSR La Première, etc.)

Publications

Academia

Datasets

• Senn, J., Stolz, J., & Köhrsen, J. (2025). National Congregations Study Switzerland (NCSS) cross-sectional surveys, waves 1 and 2 (2008–2009, 2022–2023) (Version 1.0) [Data set]. FORS. https://doi.org/10.48573/km80-t892
• Senn, J., Stolz, J., & Köhrsen, J. (2025). National Congregations Study Switzerland (NCSS) congregational census, waves 1 and 2 (2008–2009, 2020–2021) (Version 1.0) [Data set]. FORS. https://doi.org/10.48573/6tqz-q565

Research articles

• Senn, J., & Stolz, J. (2026). Gay grace: The sequential rise of homosexuality acceptance in Swiss and US congregations. Sociological Forum. (accepted with minor revision)
• Senn, J., & Stolz, J. (2025). The sequential rise of female religious leadership. Sociological Science, 12(9), 180–201. https://sociologicalscience.com/articles-v12-9-180/
• Senn, J., Stolz, J., & Monnot, C. (2024). Diversity dynamics: How local religious groups are born, stay, and die over time. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 63(3), 519–542. http://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12907

Book chapters and reports

• Stolz, J., Senn, J. (2025). Religious markets, religious marketing, and individual religious choice in Europe. In Fokas, E. and Georgie, A. (eds.) Routledge Handbook on Politics and Religion in Europe. London: Routledge.
• Stolz, J., Köhrsen, J., Senn et al. (2024). Sécularisation et inclusion. L’évolution des groupes religieux locaux en Suisse, 2008 – 2022. Social Change in Switzerland, 39. https://doi.org/10.22019/SC-2024-00005
• Stolz, J., Senn, J. (2023). Säkularisierung und der Anstieg der Konfessionslosen in der Schweiz. Eine soziologische Perspektive. In Schulthess (Ed.). Zeiten der Säkularisierung. Herausforderungen für das Verhältnis von Staat und Religion.
• Stolz, J., and Senn, J. (2022). Generationen abnehmenden Glaubens. In J. Stolz, A. Bünker, A. Liedhegener, E. Baumann-Neuhaus, I. Becci, Z. Dandarova Robert, J. Senn, P. Tanner, O. Wäckerlig, & U. Winter-Pfändler (Eds.), Religionstrends in der Schweiz: Religion, Spiritualität und Säkularität im gesellschaftlichen Wandel (pp. 7–31). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-36568-4_2
  • Full text
  • English short version published in Social Change in Switzerland
  • French short version published in Social Change in Switzerland

Newspapers and online articles

• Senn, J. (2023). Les communautés locales musulmanes en Suisse : évolution entre 2008 et 2020. Islam and Society.
• Stolz, J., Senn, J. (2021, November 11). La foi décroissante, une question de générations. Le Temps.
• Stolz, J., Senn, J. (2021, December 30). Warum sich die Kirchen leeren. Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

Media interviews/mentions

Radio

• Senn, J. (2023, April 1). Radio interview about secularization in Switzerland. Interviewed by Z. Decker. 6h–9h Le samedi. RSR La Première.

Newspapers

• Spring, D. (2025, February). Plus loin de toi, mon Dieu ! Allez savoir !.
• Monayron, G. (2024, December 16). « Autrefois les religions expliquaient le monde. Aujourd’hui, c’est la science ». L’Uniscope.
• Burri, J. (2023, March 28). Les causes du mouvement de sécularisation restent inexpliquées. Réformés.
• Fernandez, L. (2023, February 6). Plus d’un Neuchâtelois sur deux se dit « sans religion ». Arc Info.
• Hartmann, D. (2022, November 18). À chaque génération sa foi. Le Courrier.
• ATS (2022, November 13). Un certain déclin de la foi chrétienne en Suisse. La Liberté.
• Seppey, A. (2022, April 15). Où va la foi ? « Chaque génération est moins religieuse que la précédente ». Le Temps.

Conferences / talks

2026

• 2026 INAS Conference Nuffield College, UK

2025

• ECSR 2025 annual conference University of Cologne, Germany
  • The sequential rise of female religious leadership
• SISR/ISSR 2025 annual conference Kaunas, Lithuania
  • Switzerland’s changing religious landscape. Key results from the National Congregation Study Switzerland
• LIVES day 2025 University of Lausanne, Switzerland
  • Gay grace. The sequential rise of homosexuality acceptance in Swiss and US congregations
• Material religion: between heritage and new perspectives University of Strasbourg, France
  • Does the building play a role in the continuation of religious activities of local congregations in Switzerland?

2024

• ASR 2024 annual meeting Montreal, Canada
  • The effects of the Covid pandemic and the reaction of congregations in Switzerland

2022

• SSSR+RRA 2022 Meeting Baltimore, USA
  • Is religious diversity really growing? Results from the 2nd National Congregation Study Switzerland
• Consortium for International Surveys of Congregations (CISC) Research Symposium University of Copenhagen, Denmark
  • Diversity dynamics. How local religious groups are born, stay, and die over time

2021

• 36th SISR/ISSR Conference
  • Changes in the Swiss religious landscape and diversity. First results in the light of two National Congregations Censuses
• ISSR 2021 Research Symposium University of Lausanne
  • L’évolution du paysage religieux suisse (2008–2020). Diversité, mortalité et fusions des groupes religieux locaux

Teaching

2026

• Assistant for a seminar on evolutionary sociology of religion and a methods course (qualitative + quantitative) University of Lausanne, Switzerland

2025

• Diversité religieuse en institution (professional training course, EPFL/UNIL) University of Lausanne, Switzerland
  • Diversité religieuse en Suisse : un panorama dynamique

2023

• Study days on the institutional recognition of religious diversity University of Lausanne, Switzerland
  • Perspective institutionnelle. Le cas de la Suisse

2022

• Pluralité religieuse et enjeux de reconnaissance sociale (seminar) University of Strasbourg, France
  • L’évolution du paysage religieux suisse (2008–2020). Diversité, mortalité et fusions des groupes religieux locaux
• Atelier de terrain en sciences sociales des religions contemporaines (seminar) University of Lausanne, Switzerland
  • Le champ des groupes religieux locaux en Suisse. Structure institutionnelle et diversité

Invited addresses

• 2024: Invited scholar for 6 months at Duke University (USA) with Mark Chaves

Peer review experience

• Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2026 (1 article reviewed)
• Social Compass, 2023 (1 article reviewed)

Awards

• Prize for the best Master of Arts thesis in sociology at the University of Neuchâtel ($1,000), “The hegemony of genes? Kinship as thought and practiced by people born of sperm donation”.

Languages

• French (native)
• English (C1)
• German (B2)

Skills

• Survey design and data collection (multimodal, multilingual, stratified sampling, complex weighting)
• Statistical analysis in R: regression modeling (logistic, beta, Bayesian), simulation, diversity measures (HHI), missing data imputation (missRanger)
• Project coordination and team supervision (up to 13 student assistants)
• Automated document generation (personalized survey invitations at scale)
• Elementary web content creation

Links

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