Omar Tomas Wasow (born December 22, 1970) is an assistant professor in

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

’s Department of Political Science. He is co-founder of the social networking website

BlackPlanet BlackPlanet is an African-American social networking service for matchmaking and job postings; it also has forums for discussion on political and social issues. BlackPlanet was launched on September 1, 2001 by Omar Wasow, an Internet analyst, wh ...

Life

Wasow grew up in a

multi-ethnic Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-eth ...

family. His father, Bernard, is of

German Jewish The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...

heritage, and his mother, Eileen, is

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

. Bernard was a

civil rights activist Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...

who participated in the Freedom Summer Project, which entailed registering Black voters in Mississippi. Wasow's paternal grandfather was the mathematician Wolfgang R. Wasow. Both Wolfgang Wasow and Omar Wasow's paternal grandmother are of

heritage.

Education

Wasow is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, where he was president of the student union. He then graduated from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

with a BA degree in race and ethnic relations. Wasow earned a PhD in

studies, an MA in government and an MA in statistics, all from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Tech career

In 1995, Wasow was proclaimed by ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...

'' as one of the "fifty most influential people to watch in cyberspace." In 1999 he created

, one of the first major social networking sites. In 2008, the company was sold for $38 million.

Academic career

Wasow became an assistant professor of Politics at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in 2013. Wasow’s work centers on race and ethnic politics and social movements and protests. Published four days before the murder of George Floyd, his ''

American Political Science Review The ''American Political Science Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all areas of political science. It is an official journal of the American Political Science Association and is published on their behalf by Cambridg ...

'' paper on violent and nonviolent civil rights protests in the 1960s was widely discussed in media coverage of the

George Floyd protests The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internati ...

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ranked the paper in the top 1% (1,000 of 18 million papers). Controversy erupted after

David Shor David Shor (born 1991) is an American data scientist and political consultant known for analyzing political polls. He serves as head of data science with Blue Rose Research in New York City, and is a senior fellow with the Center for American Prog ...

was fired from his job at

Civis Analytics Civis Analytics is a US data science software and consultancy company founded by Dan Wagner in 2013, with backing by Eric Schmidt. Wagner had served as the Chief Analytics Officer for Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. Civis Analytics ...

, a progressive data analytics company, for tweeting a summary of Wasow’s paper. Wasow has written commentary on the

and the

2021 United States Capitol attack On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of then-U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The mob was seeking to keep Trump in pow ...

. In Summer 2021, Wasow became an assistant professor of Politics at

Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California. In 1925, it became ...

in Claremont, California. In 2022, he left Pomona College to become an assistant professor in

’s Department of Political Science.

Personal life

In 2012, Wasow married

Jennifer Brea Jennifer Brea is an American documentary filmmaker and activist. Her debut feature, '' Unrest'', premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and received the US Documentary Special Jury Award For Editing. Brea also co-created a virtual reality fil ...

, a documentary filmmaker he met while they were both Ph.D. students at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. He appears in her documentary film ''Unrest'' about her experience living with

myalgic encephalomyelitis Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) or ME/CFS, is a complex, debilitating, long-term medical condition. The causes and mechanisms of the disease are not fully understood. Distinguishing core symptoms are ...

which premiered at the

2017 Sundance Film Festival The 2017 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 19 to January 29, 2017. The first lineup of competition films was announced November 30, 2016. Awards The following awards were presented: * Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic – ''I Don't Feel at ...

. Wasow's sister is the filmmaker Althea Wasow, married to the writer Paul Beatty.Millen, Robbie

''The Times'', October 25, 2016.

References

External links

Omarwasow.com
- official website *
C-SPAN ''Q&A'' interview with Wasow, December 27, 2009
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wasow, Omar 1970 births Living people Kenyan emigrants to the United States American financial analysts American people of German-Jewish descent African-American people Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Henry Crown Fellows Stanford University alumni Princeton University faculty Pomona College faculty