John L. Jackson Jr. has been chosen to be the next provost at the University of Pennsylvania, effective June 1. He will be the 31st individual to serve as provost at the university.
“I could not be more honored and genuinely humbled to be asked to serve in this important post,” Dr. Jackson said. “I look forward to working closely with President Magill and the entire Penn community as we navigate the challenges and opportunities of today and prepare, together, for the ones that will emerge tomorrow.”
Dr. Jackson is currently the Walter H. Annenberg Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication and the Richard Perry University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He was previously dean of the School of Social Policy & Practice and senior advisor to the provost on diversity at the university. Professor Jackson joined the faculty at the university in 2006 after erving as an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University.
An urban researcher, media ethnographer, anthropologist of religion, and theorist of race/ethnicity, Dr. Jackson’s work explores how film and other nontraditional formats can be effectively used in scholarly research projects. He is the author or co-author of several books including Thin Description: Ethnography and the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem (Harvard University Press, 2013), Racial Paranoia: The Unintended Consequences of Political Correctness (Basic Civitas, 2008), and Real Black: Adventures in Racial Sincerity (University of Chicago Press, 2005).
Dr. Jackson is a summa cum laude graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he majored in communication He holds two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University in New York City.
