Kenneth Prewitt currently serves as senior advisor in the Office of the Director at the U.S. Census Bureau. Most recently, Prewitt was the Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs, special advisor to the president at Columbia University (School of International and Public Affairs). He taught political science at the University of Chicago from 1965-1982, and for shorter stints, was on the faculty of Stanford University, Washington University, the University of Nairobi, Makerere University, and the Graduate Faculty at the New School University (where he was also dean).

Prewitt's professional career also includes director of the Census Bureau, director of the National Opinion Research Center, president of the Social Science Research Council, and senior vice president of the Rockefeller Foundation. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Russell-Sage Foundation, and member of other professional associations, including six years as president of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Among his awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, honorary degrees from Carnegie Mellon and Southern Methodist University, a Distinguished Service Award from the New School for Social Research, the Charles E. Merriam Lifetime Career Award, American Political Science Association and the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit from the Federal Republic of Germany.

Prewitt holds a bachelor’s from Southern Methodist University (1958); master’s from Washington University (1959), Harvard Divinity School (1960) as a Danforth fellow; and Ph.D. from Stanford University (1963).

He has authored and co-authored 15 books and more than 100 articles and book chapters. His most recent book is What Is YOUR Race? The Census and Our Flawed Efforts to Classify Americans, Princeton U, Press.