Dr. Deepa Kumar is an award-winning scholar and activist. She is Professor of Media Studies at Rutgers University. She is the author of more than 80 publications including books, journal articles, book chapters, and articles in independent and mainstream media.

Her first book, Outside the Box: Corporate Media, Globalization and the UPS Strike (University of Illinois Press, 2007), is about the power of the U.S. working class in effectively challenging the priorities of neoliberalism. In her second book, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire (Haymarket Books, 2012) she turns her attention to race and the politics of empire during the War on Terror era. The book was translated into five languages and has been widely read around the world. The second and fully revised edition of Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire: 20 Years Since 9/11 (Verso, 2021) updates the book to the end of the Trump presidency.

She is currently working on a third book, tentatively titled Terrorcraft: Empire, Race, and Security, about the political and cultural production of the terrorist threat in the era of neoliberalism.

She is recognized as a leading scholar on Islamophobia both nationally and internationally. She has been sought out by the media for her expertise in numerous media outlets such as the BBC, The New York Times, NPR, USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer, Danish Broadcasting Corporation, Telesur (Venezuela), Hurriyat Daily News (Turkey), Al Jazeera and other national and international news media outlets.