Lasry Family Professor of Race Relations:
Tukufu Zuberi

Dr. Tukufu Zuberi, professor of sociology and director of the Center for Africana Studies, has been appointed the inaugural Lasry Family Endowed Professor of Race Relations. 

Dr. Zuberi, who joined the Penn faculty in 1989, has made important contributions to the study of interracial contact, population studies and Africana studies. He is a member of Penn’s Population Studies Center and has spearheaded several major research projects including the African Census Analysis Project (ACAP). A collaborative effort between researchers at Penn and scholars from African institutions specializing in demographic research and training, ACAP aims to increase the usefulness and availability of census data to promote a better understanding of African demography.

Dr. Zuberi’s books include Swing Low, Sweet Chariot: The Mortality Cost of Colonizing Liberia in the 19th Century; Thicker Than Blood: An Essay on How Racial Statistics Lie and a co-edited volume entitled Demography of South Africa, forthcoming this summer. He has co-edited special issues of Black Scholar, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and Race and Society.  

Dr. Zuberi has previously served the University as the chair of the graduate group in demography and director of the African Studies Center. He has taught  undergraduate and graduate courses including “Race in American Society,” “The Demography of Race” and “Race and Ethnic Relations.”

Dr. Zuberi has received numerous honors, including a Rockefeller Foundation Social Science Research Fellowship. In addition, he has received research grants and awards from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the NIH and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, among others.   

He is also the co-host of the Public Broadcasting Service’s “History Detectives,” a nationally syndicated series that seeks to uncover the mysteries of America’s past, and is currently working on a PBS documentary on African independence. 

Dr. Zuberi has been a visiting professor at Makerere University in Uganda and at the University of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania. He holds his doctorate from the University of Chicago, master’s degree from California State University and bachelor’s degree from San Jose State University.

Established in 2004 by Cathy and Marc Lasry, Parents ’07, this chair was created to support a preeminent scholar and teacher whose interests lie in the field of African American studies. Mr. Lasry is founder and managing partner of Avenue Capital Group, a New York-based manager of distressed funds. He is also the founder of Amroc Investments, one of the nation’s largest broker/dealers of distressed securities. Mrs. Lasry has served on the boards of directors for a number of organizations and institutions including Clark University.