Jen'nan Ghazal Read is Professor and Chair of Sociology and a faculty affiliate of Global Health at Duke University. Dr. Read is a Carnegie Scholar whose research focuses on the assimilation of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. and Western Europe, specifically on issues of political integration, gender relations, and health. She has published widely on these topics, including a book and numerous articles. She has appeared as an expert on numerous national and international shows, such as the Charlie Rose Show, National Public Radio, and Al-Jazeera English. She has received several prestigious awards and grants, including ones from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Russell Sage Foundation, and U.S. Census Bureau.

Dr. Read graduated Summa Cum Laude from Midwestern State University in 1995 as the Student Body President and was named Outstanding Alumnus of the Year in 2008. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin in 2001 and held a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Rice University in the James Baker Institute for Public Policy and Department of Sociology from 2001-2003. She was an Assistant and Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California-Irvine from 2003-2007 before joining Duke University in 2008.