Khalil Gibran Muhammad

In December 2015, it was announced that Muhammad would leave his position at the Schomburg to teach at Harvard University. At Harvard he is professor of history, race and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and holds a dual appointment at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

In 2011, Crain's New York Business chose Muhammad as one of its notable 40 Under 40.

From 2010 until 2015, he served as director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. He succeeded long-time director, Howard Dodson.

In 2005, he joined the faculty of Indiana University Bloomington as professor of American history, African American and African diaspora studies and American studies.

In 2004, Muhammad received his Ph.D. in American history from Rutgers University, specializing in 20th century and African-American history. In 2013, Muhammad was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from The New School.

From 2003 to 2005, Muhammad worked as a postdoctoral Fellow at the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit criminal justice reform agency in New York City.

Muhammad has been married to Stephanie Lawson-Muhammad since 1998. Together they have three children.

In 1993, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree in economics. During college, Muhammad became a member of the Delta Eta chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.

Khalil Gibran Muhammad (born April 27, 1972) is an American academic. He is a professor at Harvard Kennedy School and the Radcliffe Institute. He is the former director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a Harlem-based branch of the New York Public Library system, a research facility dedicated to the history of the African diaspora. Prior to joining the Schomburg Center in 2010, Muhammad was an associate professor of history at Indiana University Bloomington.

Muhammad grew up in South Side, Chicago, a working- and middle-class community that was predominantly segregated. He attended Kenwood Academy in Hyde Park. He is the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times photographer Ozier Muhammad and Dr. Kimberly Muhammad-Earl, a teacher and administrator at the Chicago Board of Education. His paternal great-grandfather is Elijah Muhammad, an African-American religious leader, who led the Nation of Islam (NOI) from 1934 until his death in 1975 when Muhammad was 2 and a half years old.