Professor Massimo Introvigne, a lawyer and social scientist (B.D. Philosophy, and Dr. Jur., University of Turin, Italy) is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), and has been a part-time professor at the Queen of the Apostles, Rome, Italy.

During his studies and while holding several teaching positions in the field of sociology and history of religions in a number of Italian universities, Introvigne started collecting books on minority religions and esoteric-gnostic schools in the 1970s. His collection now includes more than 25,000 volumes that are made available to the public via the CESNUR library.

Introvigne is also a partner and attorney specialized on intellectual property at the Jacobacci & Associati law firm in Turin. Italy.

Introvigne is the author of more than 40 books including Le Nuove Religioni ("The New Religions". 1989), and I Mormoni ("I, Mormon", 1991), and editor of nine books in the field of sociology of religion. In 2001, he was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy), one of the most reviewed Italian books in this filed. He is also the main editor of the website www.cesnur.org. He has participated in several activities of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion and the International Federation of Catholic Universitiesand is a member of the group "Religions" of the Italian Association of Sociology (AIS).