Nicholas B. Dirks is an American academic and a former Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley. Dirks is the author of numerous books on South Asian history and culture, primarily concerned with the impact of British colonial rule. In June 2020, Dirks was named president and CEO of The New York Academy of Sciences.

Dirks was born in Illinois but grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, where his father, J. Edward Dirks, was a professor at Yale University. When the latter received a Fulbright Scholarship in 1963 to teach at the Madras Christian College, the Dirks family relocated to Madras, where Nicholas developed an interest in Indian culture. He completed his undergraduate education at Wesleyan University, where he received a B.A. in African and Asian studies in 1972. Thereafter, he attended the University of Chicago, where he earned an M.A. in history in 1974 and a Ph.D. in history and anthropology in 1981.

Dirks's career spans five decades and includes experience in higher education both as a member of the faculty as well as in administration, in addition to positions in the nonprofit sector.

Upon completing his PhD, Dirks joined the faculty at the California Institute of Technology as an assistant professor. There he taught an Introduction to Asian Civilization course for undergraduate students. He also returned to India to conduct fieldwork for what would become his first book, The Hollow Crown.

Dirks left Caltech for a faculty position at the University of Michigan in 1987 where he had the opportunity to teach graduate students for the first time. With joint appointments in history and anthropology, he worked with a colleague to develop an interdisciplinary PhD program combining the two disciplines. This work paved the way as Dirks eventually transitioned to university administration.

In 1997 Dirks left Michigan to chair the anthropology department at Columbia University, the oldest department of its kind in the United States. Under his leadership, the department recruited new faculty from Asia as well as Africa. Additionally, Dirks supported research in colonial and postcolonial studies. Dirks published his second book, Castes of Mind, in 2001.

In 2004, Dirks became a full-time administrator at Columbia, serving as Vice President, and later, Executive Vice President, of the Arts and Sciences and Dean of the Faculty. This enabled him "to promote interdisciplinary study across all of the liberal arts and sciences." In this role he oversaw six schools, 29 departments, and several special programs and labs. The Scandal of the Empire, Dirks's third book, was published in 2006.

Dirks left Columbia in 2013 to serve as chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley. He resigned from the chancellorship in 2017. He remains on faculty of the history department at Berkeley, an unpaid position that enables him to continue to teach and work for the university. From 2018 to 2020 Dirks was chancellor and vice-chairman of Whittle School & Studios, a global network of independent schools serving children from 3 to 18.