Jen'nan Ghazal Read is a Professor of Sociology at Duke University with secondary appointments in the Sanford School of Public Policy and Duke Global Health Institute. She is a Carnegie Scholar whose expertise lies in the social determinants of US health disparities and on the assimilation experiences of Arabs and Muslims in the United States. Her most recent work has focused on the categorization of racial groups classified by the US Census as “White," and the consequences for social mobility when groups such as Arab Americans and eastern Europeans are isolated from the generic White category. She has published widely on these topics, including a book and numerous peer-reviewed journal articles.

Dr. Read has extensive leadership experience, including six years as Chair of Sociology at Duke University (2019–2025). In this role, she provided visionary leadership for a top-ranked department, overseeing faculty recruitment and retention, curriculum modernization, and strategic planning. She championed diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, expanded interdisciplinary collaborations across the social sciences, and managed multimillion-dollar budgets to support research and teaching excellence. Her leadership strengthened global engagement and positioned the department as a hub for innovative scholarship and public impact. She continues to shape international scholarship and governance as Chair of the Advisory Board for the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, fostering academic excellence and institutional development in the Middle East.

Dr. Read spent her childhood in Libya and Egypt, North Africa, before returning to the United States at the age of 14. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Midwestern State University (1995) as Student Body President, received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin (2001), and held a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Rice University in the James Baker Institute for Public Policy and Department of Sociology (2001-2003).