Timur Kuran is Professor of Economics and Political Science, Gorter Family Chair in Islamic Studies, and Associate Director of the Islamic Studies Center at Duke University. He received his Ph.D. in economics at Stanford University, and he has been the King Faisal Chair in Islamic Thought and Culture and Director of the Institute for Economic Research on Civilizations at the University of Southern California; John Olin Visiting professorship at the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago; Visiting Professor of Economics at Stanford University; and a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University.

Professor Kuran is the author of more than 100 articles and reviews in scholarly journals, and his books include Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification and Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism. He is also Associate Editor of the Pakistan Journal of Applied Economics and was Founding Editor of the University of Michigan Press book series, "Economics, Cognition, and Society."