Saladin Ambar, Ph.D., is a professor of political science and senior scholar at the Center on the American Governor at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. He is the author of four books including Malcolm X at Oxford Union: Racial Politics in a Global Era, which was nominated for a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for best non-fiction book by an African American author, and is currently in the development stages of a feature film adaption by Number 9 Films. Ambar is also the author of the forthcoming Stars and Shadows: The Politics of Interracial Friendship from Jefferson to Obama, which is scheduled for release in the spring of 2022. 

Ambar writes and teaches about the American presidency, governorship, and racial and ethnic politics. His book American Cicero: Mario Cuomo and the Defense of American Liberalism, and the forthcoming collaboration with Eagleton's John Farmer, John Weingart, and Kris Shields, Governors and the Crises that Define Them, bring to the forefront the role of governors in America's political and policy system. His work has been featured in Presidential Studies Quarterly, The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, Race & Class, The Washington Post, Newsweek, CNN, The Root, the New York Daily News, and the Huffington Post, among others. Ambar was a featured guest on CNN's "Race to the White House" series, offering commentary on the presidential elections of 1916, 1952, and 1964. He is a regular guest on New York and New Jersey's PBS' MetroFocus and a regular opinion columnist for NJ Spotlight. 

Prior to completing his doctorate at Rutgers University in 2008, Ambar served in the Teach For America program. He taught for 18 years in New York and New Jersey’s public school system and is currently researching for a future book on the early political thought of Abraham Lincoln. Ambar is the father of 14-year-old triplets and lives in Philadelphia, PA.