In awarding the 2026 honorary degrees, President Maurie McInnis read the following personalized citation.
Muslim scholar, interfaith leader, author, bridge builder, and champion of peace: a reading of the Qur’an helped transform your life and heralded your conversion to Islam. As the first woman and first convert to lead the Islamic Society of North America, and a continuing advocate for Muslims and for positive resolution of conflicts and differences everywhere, you have brought integrity, wisdom, and a steadfast commitment to dialogue across faiths. Your initiatives have consistently emphasized ethical leadership, mutual understanding, and the constructive role of Islam in pluralistic societies.
Compassionate and powerful force for good in a troubled world, Yale wishes you a thousand blessings as it honors you with the degree of Doctor of Divinity.
Dr. Ingrid Mattson is a distinguished Canadian scholar, activist, and former president of the Islamic Society of North America. Renowned for her contributions to interfaith dialogue and Islamic studies, Mattson’s work has significantly advanced the understanding and appreciation of Islam in North America. She is a professor of Islamic Studies and the London and Windsor Community Chair in Islamic Studies at Huron University College in London, Ontario. Mattson serves as the founder and director of the Centre for Islamic Theology, Ethics & Spirituality.
Mattson was born in Kitchener, Ontario and was raised Roman Catholic. The sixth of seven children, spending time at her Catholic girls’ high school and attending piano lessons at the convent provided a reprieve from her busy household; but after Mattson studied the Catholic faith as a teenager, she decided to discontinue travelling on this spiritual path.
Mattson attended the University of Waterloo, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in philosophy and studied abroad in Paris. There she enjoyed the friendship and generosity of a community of West African Muslim students. Mattson was inspired to learn more about Islam and to study Arabic, eventually converting to Islam in her senior year of college in 1987.
In her early twenties, Mattson traveled with a Canadian aid organization to the border region of Pakistan to support Afghan refugee women and children who had escaped the Soviet occupation. This experience was transformative, as she encountered people from all over the world. This included secular medics, religious missionaries, and intelligence agents, all intervening in the crisis with their own goals and methods, some of which provided helpful interventions, while others were wasteful or harmful. For months, Mattson studied these projects and spent time with the women in the camps, observing their creativity, intelligence, and determination. This experience led her to value the epistemic authority of people in need and the lasting benefit of capacity-building programs built upon human resilience.
Inspired by her experiences, Mattson pursued further education, earning her PhD in Islamic studies from the University of Chicago. Her doctoral research focused on Islamic law and society, and she immersed herself in the study of classical Arabic texts. Mattson joined the Hartford Seminary’s Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations as a professor, where she founded and directed the first accredited professional program for Muslim chaplains in North America.
In 2006, Mattson made history as the first female and first convert to Islam to be elected president of the Islamic Society of North America, one of the largest Muslim organizations in North America. During her tenure, she worked to promote interfaith dialogue and address issues of social justice, community development, and women’s empowerment within the Muslim community. Mattson’s leadership and advocacy have been instrumental in challenging stereotypes and promoting a pluralistic understanding of Islam.
Mattson’s contributions to academia and society have been recognized with numerous honors, including honorary doctorates from the Chicago Theological Seminary, Trinity College (Hartford) and the University of Waterloo. Her research focuses on Qur’anic studies, applied Islamic ethics, and interfaith relations; her book, The Story of the Qur’an: Its History and Place in Muslim Life, is an academic bestseller. In 2018, she founded and is the director of the research and educational initiative, the Hurma Project, to prevent and respond to violations of trust and spiritual abuse in Muslim spaces.
