Corey D.B. Walker
Rev. Dr. Corey D. B. Walker is Dean of Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Wake Forest Professor of the Humanities, and Director of the Program in African American and African Studies. He is an acclaimed scholar, academic leader, and public intellectual committed to a broad and inclusive vision of human flourishing. He was named 2023-2024 Phi Beta Kappa Frank M. Updike Memorial Scholar, becoming the first Wake Forest University professor selected as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, and was named the Sterling A. Brown ’22 Distinguished Visiting Professor of Africana Studies at Williams College for the spring of 2026. Prior to these roles, Dean Walker served Vice President, Dean, and Professor of Religion and Society at the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University; founding Dean of the College of Arts, Sciences, Business and Education and inaugural John W. and Anna Hodgin Hanes Professor of the Humanities at Winston-Salem State University; and Chair of the Department of Africana Studies at Brown University, where he was also a tenured professor and faculty affiliate in the department of American Studies, department of Religious Studies, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, and Committee on Science and Technology Studies. A native of Norfolk, Virginia and an ordained American Baptist clergyperson, Dean Walker holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Norfolk State University. After a successful career in the financial services industry, he earned a Master of Divinity degree from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology of Virginia Union University, a Master of Theological Studies degree from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in American Studies from The College of William and Mary. He also holds a Master of Arts degree, ad eundem, from Brown University. He is Baptist. Winston-Salem, North Carolina.