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Saladin Ambar is 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. 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’s forthcoming book, Murder on the Mississippi: The Shocking Crimes That Shaped 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 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.