Richard Brent Turner is professor of African-American religious history, with joint appointments in the Department of Religious Studies, the African American Studies Program, and International Programs at The University of Iowa. His education includes: Ph.D. and M.A., Religion (Princeton University); Summer Language Study (Harvard University); M.A., Afro-American Studies and B.A., Religion (Boston University); and High School Diploma (Boston Latin School).

Dr. Turner has published the following books: Soundtrack to a Movement: African American Islam, Jazz, and Black Internationalism (NYU Press, 2021); Jazz Religion, the Second Line, and Black New Orleans (Indiana University Press, 2009); Islam and African Americans, Electronic Volume (Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience: New York Public Library and Proquest Information and Learning Company, 2006); Islam in the African-American Experience, Second Edition (Indiana University Press, 2003); and Islam in the African-American Experience (Indiana University Press, 1997). He is now working on a new book on Malcolm X, John Coltrane, and the 1960s.

Dr. Turner is on the Board of Directors of KOSANBA, an International Scholarly Association for the Study of Haitian Vodou, based at the Center for Black Studies Research, University of California, Santa Barbara and he is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Africana Religions.