Cathleen Falsani (born September 25, 1970) is an American journalist and author. She specializes in the intersection of religion/spirituality/faith and culture, and has been a staff writer for the Chicago Sun Times, the Chicago Tribune, Sojourners magazine, Religion News Service, and the Orange County Register in Southern California. Falsani is the author of several non-fiction books on religious, spiritual, and cultural issues. She was the 2005 Religion Writer of the Year, as awarded by the Religion Newswriters Association, and has twice been a finalist for the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year award. Early life and education Falsani was born on September 25, 1970. She holds masters degrees in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, and in theological studies from Garrett–Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. She was born into a Roman Catholic family of Irish and Italian descent, but her parents left the Catholic church when she was 10 years old. With her younger brother, she was reared as an evangelical Protestant from grade school forward, largely in a Southern Baptist church in Fairfield, Connecticut. Falsani attended Christian Heritage School, an evangelical Christian prep school in Trumbull, Connecticut, graduating in 1988. Career Falsani is the author of The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People, a collection of 32 spiritual profiles of famous "culture shapers" including Bono, Elie Wiesel, Anne Rice, Hakeem Olajuwon. Falsani's first book, it was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2006, launching Sarah Crichton Books, a new imprint of the publisher. It was named among the best non-fiction books of 2006 by The Christian Science Monitor. Falsani joined the Chicago Sun-Times in September 2000, and served as the paper's religion reporter until 2007, continuing on as its religion columnist until January 13, 2010. She wrote, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide For Grace (2008) a spiritual memoir and travelogue and The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers (2009), both published by Zondervan. Falsani is a correspondent and columnist for Religion News Service and a featured writer and correspondent for Sojourners. She also was web editor and director of new media for Sojourners from 2011 to 2012. She was the staff "faith and values" columnist for the Orange County Register from 2013 to 2014. Interview with Obama on religion In March 2004, Falsani conducted an interview with Barack Obama. At the time of the interview, Obama was