Lauren Poyer is an assistant teaching professor in the Department of Scandinavian Studies. She is a medievalist who specializes in Old Norse-Icelandic studies, and her research focuses on Christian folk religion as represented in the Sagas of Icelanders. She regularly teaches Scandinavian Mythology, Sagas of the Vikings, Vikings in Popular Culture, and Old Norse Language. She believes that investigating modern cultural myths about the Middle Ages gives students the tools they need to become better-prepared and better-informed citizens of the world, and that learning to understand people from the past in their own words can help students become more aware of how language and culture shape their own lives and open doors into the lives of others.