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Bettina E. Schmidt, PhHabil, PhD, MA in cultural anthropology (Marburg University, Germany), Professor of study of religions at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and Director of the Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre in Lampeter. Previously she worked at Marburg University, Oxford University and Bangor University. She was also visiting professor at the City University of New York and visiting scholar at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo. She has published extensively on Caribbean and Latin American religions, identity, cultural theories and migration. Her academic interests include the anthropology of religion, diaspora identity, religious experience, urban studies, medical anthropology and gender issues. Her main fieldworks were conducted in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, New York City, and, more recently, in São Paulo, Brazil, about spirit possession and trance. She is the author of Caribbean Diaspora in the USA: Diversity of Caribbean Religions in New York City (2008, Ashgate), Einführung in die Religionsethnologie (2008, Reimer Verlag Berlin), and co-editor of Spirit Possession and Trance: New Interdisciplinary Perspectives (2010, Continuum), to name just a few recent publications.