Saladin Ambar

Saladin Ambar joined the Eagleton Institute of Politics in 2017. Dr. Ambar is a Senior Scholar at Eagleton’s Center on the American Governor and Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University—New Brunswick. He is the author of six books, including Stars and Shadows: The Politics of Interracial Friendship from Jefferson to Obama (Oxford University Press 2022), which won the PROSE Award for Best Book in Government and Politics from the Association of American Publishers in 2023. Prof. Ambar’s Malcolm X at Oxford Union: Racial Politics in a Global Era (Oxford University Press 2014) is currently in development for a feature length film, by Number 9 Films (UK). 

Dr. Ambar’s forthcoming book, Three Murders on the Mississippi: A Thousand Days That Made Abraham Lincoln (Diversion Books, 2025), offers a narrative examination of a series of racially motivated lynchings and murders beginning in 1835, that haunted the young Abraham Lincoln and illuminated for him how vulnerable America was to the rise of despotism. The events became a central focus of Lincoln’s first major speech, the “Lyceum Address,” delivered in 1838.    

Dr. Ambar’s research focuses on the institutions of the American presidency and governorship, race and ethnic politics, American political thought, and American political development. He is currently the New Jersey Social Justice Institute’s Director of the Democracy Committee for the New Jersey Reparations Council. Prof. Ambar also serves as scholarly advisor to the Lincoln Presidential Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum. 

Dr.Ambar has appeared as an expert commentator in several episodes of CNN’s series “Race for the White House,” and has consulted for the Smithsonian Channel as a fact-checker. He has been a regular guest on PBS New Jersey and New York’s broadcasts of MetroFocus, offering political commentary, and his work has been featured in numerous media outlets, including the Washington Post, CNN, Politico, Newsweek, The Root, the Huffington Post, Literary Hub, the Daily News, and NJ Spotlight. 

Before his career in academia, Dr. Ambar taught in the New York City and New Jersey public school systems for 18 years, beginning as a Teach For America recruit. Prof. Ambar is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where he received his BS in International Politics; he received his MA in Political Science from the New School for Social Research and completed his PhD in Political Science at Rutgers University—New Brunswick. He has recently become a dual citizen with Italy. Dr. Ambar is the father of 17-year-old triplets, and he lives in Philadelphia with his cats Orson and Oscar.