Robert Crews was named by the Carnegie Corporation of New York as one of the 2009 Carnegie Scholars selected for influential ideas and enhancing public discourse about Islam. He aims to understand how the mobility and interconnectedness of Muslims have intersected with the politics of empires, states, nations, and locales. His research challenges predominant American frameworks for understanding Muslim identities of a unified “Muslim world”, on one hand, and the nation-state on the other hand.

Crews’ research interests include Muslim networks, Empire, Afghanistan, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Iran, and he is the author of several books and articles on these topics, including For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia (Harvard University Press, 2006) and co-editor, with Amin Tarzi, of The Taliban and the Crisis of Modern Afghanistan (Harvard University Press, 2008). His most recent publication,"Trafficking in Evil? The Global Arms Trade and the Politics if Disorder" is forthcoming in the book Global Islam in the Age of Steam and Print, 1850-1930, to be published by University of California Press.

Crews is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including a Library of Congress Fellowship in International Studies in Spring, 2003; a William H. and Frances Green Faculty Fellowship at Stanford in 2006-2007; the Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching for First Years of Teaching at Stanford in 2006-2007; and a Dean’s Fellowship in the Humanities at Stanford in 2007-2008.