Jen'nan Ghazal Read is associate professor of sociology and is heading up the Duke Global Health Institute's new interdisciplinary postdoctoral fellows program. Read's research focuses on gender and ethnicity, the sociology of religion and health, and the assimilation experiences of Arab Americans and U.S. Muslims. Some of her earliest research investigated the meaning of the veil among U.S. Muslim women to assess the role of culture in the adaptation process of immigrants. As a Carnegie Scholar from 2006-2008, an honor limited to twenty scholars each year, Read has recently studied the political integration of U.S. Muslims. She is also interested in expanding her global health research to investigate the health issues of Arab women living in Middle Eastern countries. Read is author of Culture, Class and Work Among Arab-American Women (LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2004) and has published numerous scholarly articles on how race, ethnicity and gender affect health outcomes in the U.S., particularly for Arab women. An op-ed Read authored about the diversity among Muslim-Americans was recently published in multiple daily newspapers including The Philadelphia Inquirer, Detroit Free Press, The Raleigh News & Observer, Richmond Times Dispatch and The Houston Chronicle.

She received her Ph.D. and M.A. in sociology from University of Texas at Austin, completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Rice University, and then joined the faculty in the Department of Sociology at University of California-Irvine.

Jen'nan Ghazal Read, associate professor of sociology and global health at Duke University, is an expert on American Muslims and the 2008 presidential election.