Dr. Stephen C. Finley is a Religious Studies Professor at Louisiana State University and has been studying the role of the UFO narrative in the Nation of Islam. Dr. Finley received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Rice University in 2009, shortly after joining the faculty at LSU in 2008. He has a joint appointment to the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies and the Program in African & African American Studies.

Dr. Finley specializes in African American religion and his courses revolve around African American religious cultures, African American religious thought, and theory and method in the study of religion. His research expands upon these themes with an emphasis on African American religion and embodiment. His ongoing research for book projects is in three primary areas: African American Latter-day Saints; Malcolm X and Gender; and African American Religion, Esotericism, and UFOs.

He was the associate editor of the Encyclopedia of African American Religious Cultures and has published numerous journal articles, book chapters, encyclopedia essays, and book reviews. In 2012 Dr. Finley published an article in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion: “The Meaning of Mother in Louis Farrakhan’s ‘Mother Wheel’: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Cosmology of the Nation of Islam’s UFO.”

He is also the author of the monograph, "In and Out of This World: Material and Extraterrestrial Bodies in the Nation of Islam" published by Edinburgh University Press Books.