Professor Chireau is an authority on African-based religions such as Santeria and Voodoo in America, religion and healing, and black American religion. She is also interested in religion and comics, manga, and graphic novels.

The author of Black Magic: African American Religion and the Conjuring Tradition (University of California Press, 2003), she has also co-edited, with Nathaniel Deutsch, Black Zion: African American Religions and Judaism (Oxford University Press, 1999). She has also published articles in several professional publications including the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Journal of the Interdenominational Theological Center, and Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation.

Professor Chireau teaches courses on Religion in America, African American Religions, Folk and Popular Religions, Women and Religion, and Black Women’s Spirituality.

She received her B.A from Mount Holyoke College, her M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School, and her Ph.D. from Princeton University.