Jen'nan Ghazal Read is a Professor of Sociology and Global Health at Duke University and a Carnegie Scholar. Dr. Read’s research is informed by and contributes to theoretical issues in two areas of stratification and inequality: 1) social determinants of health disparities; and 2) gender inequality in ethnic and religious contexts. Her empirical focus has primarily, though not exclusively, been on Arab and Muslim populations and her methodological approach both qualitative and quantitative. She has published widely on these topics, including a book and numerous peer-review articles in top journals, including the American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Annual Review of Sociology, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, and Social Science & Medicine. 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.