Richard Jankowsky, PhD, received his BA in Anthropology and Music from Tufts University and his PhD in Ethnomusicology from the University of Chicago. Prior to his appointment to the Department of Music at Tufts University in 2006, he was on the faculty of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, England.
Through fieldwork-based methods, Professor Jankowsky's primary area of research revolves around the intersection of music, ritual, and power in North Africa, particularly music's capacity to heal, to maintain and narrate histories of underrepresented populations, to create conditions for transcendent experiences, and to serve as a flashpoint for debates over cultural, religious, and political identities.

His music analytical work explores issues of cyclicity, density, and transformation in contemporary trance rituals.
His most recent book, Ambient Sufism: Ritual Niches and the Social Work of Musical Form, features a companion web site developed in conjunction with Tufts Digital Library. His previous book Stambeli: Music, Trance, and Alterity in Tunisia, received three honorable mention awards for book prizes from academic societies in the fields of anthropology, ethnomusicology, and North African Studies. He is a two-time National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow and has also received grants from the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and Fulbright.