Michael Strmiska is Professor of World History in the Global Studies department at SUNY-Orange (Orange County Community College) in Middletown, New York. A native of Norwalk, Connecticut, he has an MA in Religions of India from the University of Wisconsin and a PhD in Religious Studies from Boston University. Prof. Strmiska studied at the University of Iceland through a Fulbright Fellowship in 1996, taught Religious Studies  at Miyazaki International College in Japan 1999-2004, taught History of Philosophy and History of European Religion at Siauliai University in Lithuania through a Fulbright Fellowship in 2004-05, taught World History surveys at Central Connecticut State University in 2005-06 and Cape Cod Community College 2006-08, and since 2008, has been teaching World History, Asian History and Russian and Eastern European History at SUNY-Orange. Prof. Strmiska received a Czech government grant to teach Religious Studies at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia in 2015. He received a Fulbright Fellowship to teach Anthropology of Religion and Media & Religion at Riga Stradins University in Latvia for spring of 2020, but owing to the Covid-19 crisis, stayed in Latvia for another year, teaching his SUNY-Orange classes online from an apartment in Riga. Thanks to another Fulbright Fellowship grant, for spring 2025,  he is living in Lithuania and teaching a course on Asian New Religious Movements at Vilnius University. He is the lead author and editor of the 2005 volume Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives  and serves on the editorial board of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies  and Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions. Prof. Strmiska has authored numerous articles on Norse and Baltic Paganism and New Religious Movements and participated in numerous international conferences. He is working on a book surveying the history of Eastern European religious diversity entitled Unchristian Eastern Europe: Pagans, Jews, Gypsies and Muslims  and a satire of New Age spirituality and pop psychology called The Book of the Potato, purporting to offer life-changing spiritual teachings from the viewpoint of the secret force guiding human history across the ages, The Potato.