Rick Halpern

Rick Halpern is a specialist in modern U.S. history and has written extensively on race and labour in a number of national and transnational contexts. He earned his BA and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and his MA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Upon completion of his doctorate in 1989, he joined the Department of History, University College London as a Lecturer and was later promoted to Reader. He joined the University of Toronto in 2001 as the first Bissell-Heyd Professor of American Studies. From 2006 to 2009 he served as Principal of New College. In. 2009 he became the Dean at the University's Scarborough campus. Professor Halpern served as Director of the Centre for the Study of the United States at the Munk School from 2004 to 2006 and again from 2024 until his retirement in 2025.