Dana L. Robert is Truman Collins Professor of World Christianity and History of Mission. A leading historian of Christian mission, Dana Robert has been teaching at Boston University since 1984. Her books include American Women in Mission: A Social History of their Thought and Practice (1997), Christianity: A Social and Cultural History (co-author 1997), African Initiatives in Christian Mission: Vol 1 The Mission Churches (editor, 2003), 'Occupy Until I Come': A. T. Pierson and the Evangelization of the World (2003), and Christian Mission: How Christianity Became a World Religion (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). Robert has directed over fifty doctoral dissertations in the history of world Christianity and mission studies, and former students hold teaching and ministry positions around the world.

With her husband M.L. "Inus" Daneel, an expert on African indigenous churches, Robert edits the series "African Initiatives in Christian Mission" for the University of South Africa Press. Together they direct the Center for Global Christianity and Mission at the Boston University School of Theology. They travel regularly to Zimbabwe, where for over forty years Daneel directed Theological Education by Extension and tree-planting movements among indigenous churches.

Robert has written the 2010 mission study for the United Methodist Women, forthcoming as Joy to the World! Mission in the Age of Global Christianity. She serves on the Committee on Faith and Order for the United Methodist Church. Her two sons, Samuel and John, are university students. A native of Louisiana, she lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.