Contributor Bios

Marlin K. Jensen
was named a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 1, 1989. He is currently serving as executive director of the church’s Church History Department and as Church historian and recorder. Elder Jensen previously practiced law in Ogden, Utah, specializing in business and estate planning. He is a partner in a family ranching enterprise. He received his bachelor’s degree in German from Brigham Young University and his J.D. from the University of Utah College of Law. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Joseph Smith Papers Project.
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Richard E. Turley Jr.
was appointed assistant Church historian and recorder for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on March 12, 2008. Prior to this appointment, he served for eight years as managing director of the Family and Church History Department, four years as managing director of the Family History Department, and fourteen years as managing director of the Church Historical Department. His book Victims: The LDS Church and the Mark Hofmann Case (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992) is an oft-cited history of the famous Hofmann forgery-murder case of the 1980s. He serves as a member of the executive committee of The Church Historians Press, chairman of the editorial board for The Joseph Smith Papers, and as general editor of the Journals of George Q. Cannon. With coauthor Lael Littke, he has published a children’s book, Stories from the Life of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2003). Along with Ronald W. Walker and Glen M. Leonard, he recently completed writing a book, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, that will be published in July 2008 by Oxford University Press.
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Steven L. Olsen
currently serves as Managing Director of the Church History Department, having worked for Church History his entire professional career. During this time he has also been an adjunct professor of anthropology at Brigham Young University. His service to the wider profession includes terms as president of the Utah Museums Association and the Western Museums Association and on the boards of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies (BYU), Utah State Office of Museum Services, National Alliance of State Museums Associations, Utah Humanities Council, and American Society of Church History. He has published widely in the fields of museum studies and church history and frequently presents at scholarly and professional conferences. He has a B.A. from Brigham Young University and A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in anthropology from the University of Chicago.
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Max J. Evans
is director of the Collections and Research Division of the Family and Church History Department. He previously served as executive director of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission from 2003 to 2008. Evans began his career with history in 1971, working in the Church Archives. In 1977 he accepted an appointment as assistant archivist for the State of Wisconsin with responsibilities involving the state historical library, archives, historical sites, publications, and the state history museum. He also served for sixteen years as the director of the Utah State Historical Society. He is a fellow of the Society of American Archivists and has published both scholarly and professional studies.
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Jill Mulvay Derr
a member of the Joseph Smith Papers Project’s Editorial Board, is Mormon studies scholar in the Special Projects Division in the Family and Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Previously, she was managing director of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History and associate professor of Church history at Brigham Young University. She received a B.A. degree from the University of Utah, and the M.A.T. degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is a past president of the Mormon History Association, and her research and publications have focused on the history of Mormon and Utah women. She edited with Kenneth and Audrey Godfrey a collection of excerpts from personal writings, Women’s Voices: An Untold History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830–1900 (1982; 2000) and coauthored with Janath Russell Cannon and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief Society (1992; 2000). She is currently collaborating with Karen Lynn Davidson on an annotated edition of the poetry of Eliza R. Snow and writing a biography of Snow.
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