Khalilah Brown-Dean
Khalilah Brown–Dean, Ph.D., The Ohio State University, 2003, is the Peter Strauss Family Assistant Professor of Political Science and African American Studies and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Yale University. She is a Resident Fellow of the Institute for Social and Policy Studies and a Research Fellow at the Macmillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale. In Spring 2005, Professor Brown–Dean convened a national conference in honor of the fortieth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 entitled, “Lessons From the Past, Prospects for the Future.”
Professor Brown–Dean specializes in American Politics, mass political behavior, criminal justice, and political psychology. She has published work on issues such as voting rights, perceptions of bias in the criminal justice system, civic engagement, and the political consequences of crime control policies. In 2004 she introduced a new course on Black and Jewish Community Politics. It is the first course of its kind to examine interactions between the two communities from a Political Science framework. Together with Professors Donald Green and Cynthia Farrar, Professor Brown–Dean received a $100,000 research grant from the Ford Foundation’s “Difficult Dialogues” Initiative. She also teaches courses on African American Politics; Voting Rights and Representation; Public Opinion; and Race and Ethnicity in American Politics. Professor Brown–Dean is a recipient of the Henry R. Spencer Award for Distinguished Teaching, the Graduate Associate Teaching Award, and has been recognized by the American Political Science Association and Pi Sigma Alpha for Outstanding Teaching in Political Science. In 2007 she received the Wilma Holmes Tootle Educational Advancement Award from the North Atlantic Region of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.
Professor Brown–Dean’s current research agenda focuses on the political dynamics surrounding the American criminal justice system. Her book manuscript, Once Convicted, Forever Doomed: Race, Crime, and Political Inequality, explores the political impact of the criminal justice system on communities of color. Her dissertation, One Lens, Multiple Views: Disenfranchisement and Political Equality, received the Best Dissertation Award from the Race and Ethnic Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. Professor Brown–Dean recently completed a second book manuscript on the legacy of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Her research on the criminal justice system has garnered international attention. As Advisor to the National Presbyterian Church’s Voting Rights and Electoral Reform Committee, Brown–Dean’s research has been used to inform public policy debates as well as lobbying efforts. She has been a guest columnist for blackprof.com and in 2005, she received the Arthur Greer Memorial Prize for Outstanding Research and earned a Junior Faculty Fellowship from Yale College.
Professor Brown–Dean has served as a political analyst, advisor, and commentator for CNN, PBS, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Crisis Magazine, Democracy Works, The Sentencing Project, Connecticut Public Television, and several governmental agencies, community organizations, and international media outlets. She provides expert testimony on issues related to voting rights and the criminal justice system. Brown–Dean is a Faculty Affiliate of The Ohio Criminal Justice Research Center and a former Fellow of the Ralph Bunche Summer Institute. She has guest lectured at leading universities including Oxford University in England.
