Fallou Ngom is Professor of Anthropology at Boston University. His research focuses on African 'Ajami literatures (African languages written in Arabic script). He has held Fulbright, ACLS, and Guggenheim fellowships. His work has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the US Department of Education, and the British Library Endangered Archives Programme. His book, Muslims beyond the Arab World: The Odyssey of Ajami and the Muridiyya (Oxford University Press, 2016), won the 2017 Melville J. Herskovits Prize for the best book in African studies. He received the 2024 Boston University Provost's Scholar-Teacher of the Year Award.