Stephanie Paulsell joined the faculty of Harvard Divinity School in 2001 as Lecturer on Ministry and was appointed associate dean for ministry studies in 2003. She served in the post of associate dean until 2005, when she was appointed Houghton Professor of the Practice of Ministry Studies. For the 2007–08 academic year, she was also associate dean for faculty and curricular affairs. Previously she served as director of ministry studies and Senior Lecturer in Religion and Literature at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Paulsell studies the points of intersection between intellectual work and spiritual practice, between the academic study of religion and the practices of ministry, and between the contemplative and active dimensions of the vocations of minister and teacher. She is the author of Honoring the Body: Meditations on a Christian Practice and co-editor of The Scope of Our Art: The Vocation of the Theological Teacher. Her current research is on Virginia Woolf and religion.
She is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).