Bertin M. Louis, Jr.

Bertin M. Louis, Jr.

My Biography

Bertin M. Louis, Jr., PhD, has been selected to receive the Sam Dubal Memorial Award for Anti-Colonialism and Racial Justice in Anthropology. This award recognizes an individual anthropologist or projects that have demonstrated a deep commitment to anti-colonial and racial justice in any world region.


Bertin M. Louis, Jr. PhD is Associate Professor of Anthropology and African American & Africana Studies (AAAS) at the University of Kentucky. He is the winner of the 2023-2024 Wenner-Gren Fellowship in Anthropology and Black Experiences. He is President of the Association of Black Anthropologists (2021-2023), past Editor of Conditionally Accepted, is a regular contributor to Higher Ed Jobs, and a co-editor for the Truthout series called “Challenging the Corporate University.” Louis is also the co-author of the forthcoming Conditionally Accepted: Navigating Higher Education from the Margins (University of Texas Press, 2024).

Dr. Louis served as the inaugural director of undergraduate studies for AAAS (2019-2021) at the University of Kentucky and Vice Chair of the Africana Studies Program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (2014-2019). Dr. Louis studies the growth of Protestant forms of Christianity among Haitians transnationally, which is featured in his New York University Press book, “My Soul is in Haiti: Protestantism in the Haitian Diaspora of the Bahamas (2015)” which was a Finalist for the 2015 Haitian Studies Association Book Prize in the Social Sciences. He also studies human rights, statelessness among Haitians in the Bahamas, anti-Haitianism, and antiracist social movements in the US South. Dr. Louis teaches courses in Black Studies and Cultural Anthropology, and he received his PhD in 2008 from the Department of Anthropology at Washington University in Saint Louis.

Dr. Louis is also the owner and founder of Navigating Higher Education (NHE), an award-winning academic consulting firm which offers higher education-related services and empowers its clients to find and secure academic positions.