Born in Ute, Owo Ondo State, Nigeria, Professor Jacob K. Olupona is a Professor and the Chair of African and African American Studies, at Harvard University, and a Professor of African Religion, at Harvard Divinity School. Prior to Harvard, he was a Professor at the University of California Davis from 1991 to 2006. He has published several books and dozens of journal articles. His book, City of 201 Gods: Ile Ife in Time, Space and the Imagination (University of California Press, 2011) received Harvard University’s Cabot Fellowship for distinguished faculty scholarship. He was awarded the prestigious Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion from the American Academy of Religion in 2018 and is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.