Omar Wasow facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Omar Wasow
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Wasow in 2007
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| Born |
Omar Tomas Wasow
1970 (age 54–55) Nairobi, Kenya
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| Nationality | American |
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| Known for | Political science, race and ethnic politics |
| Spouse(s) |
Jennifer Brea
(m. 2012) |
Omar Tomas Wasow (born December 22, 1970) is a professor at UC Berkeley. He teaches about politics and how people organize in groups. He also helped start a social website called BlackPlanet.
Contents
Early Life and Family
Omar Wasow grew up in a family with different backgrounds. His father, Bernard, has German Jewish roots. His mother, Eileen, is African-American.
Bernard Wasow was a civil rights activist. He helped people register to vote in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer Project. Omar's grandfather, Wolfgang R. Wasow, was a mathematician.
Education Journey
High School and College
Omar Wasow went to Stuyvesant High School in New York City. He was the president of the student union there.
After high school, he studied at Stanford University in California. In 1992, he earned a degree in race and ethnic relations.
Advanced Degrees
Later, Wasow continued his studies at Harvard University. He earned several advanced degrees in 2012. These included a PhD in African-American studies, an MA in government, and an MA in statistics.
Tech Career Highlights
Early Recognition
In 1995, Newsweek magazine named Omar Wasow as one of the "fifty most influential people to watch in cyberspace." This showed how important he was becoming in the early days of the internet.
Creating BlackPlanet
In 1999, he created BlackPlanet. This was one of the very first big social networking websites. It allowed people to connect online. In 2008, the company was sold for $38 million.
Academic Career
Teaching at Universities
Omar Wasow became a professor of Politics at Princeton University in 2013. He later moved to Pomona College in Claremont, California, in 2021. Since 2022, he has been a professor at UC Berkeley’s Department of Political Science.
Research on Social Movements
Professor Wasow's work focuses on race, ethnic politics, and social movements. He studies how protests and groups of people work.
His important paper about civil rights protests in the 1960s was published in the American Political Science Review. This paper was discussed a lot in the news during the George Floyd protests. It was ranked among the top 1% of all research papers.
Wasow has also written about the George Floyd protests and the 2021 United States Capitol attack.
Personal Life
In 2012, Omar Wasow married Jennifer Brea. She is a filmmaker. They met while they were both studying at Harvard.
Omar appears in Jennifer's documentary film, Unrest. The film is about her experience living with myalgic encephalomyelitis. It was shown at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.
Omar Wasow's sister, Althea Wasow, is also a filmmaker. She is married to the writer Paul Beatty.
