Who is Matthew Burtchaell Ingalls? Father of Cornell University frat brother co-accused in alleged gang rape case converted to Islam, teaches Islamic studies in Dubai; all about his UAE roots

Fresh details have emerged linked to Matthew Ingalls, one of the former Cornell University Chi Phi fraternity brothers named in the alleged gang rape lawsuit filed by Jane Doe. According to The New York Post, he is a “US hater.” He grew up in privilege, and his father is a teacher of Islamic studies in Dubai.

The news outlet has learned that Ingalls, whose full name is Umar Matthew Ingalls, admitted that he was the one who initiated the now infamous threesome that an unnamed female student, Jane Doe, claimed in a lawsuit turned into a gang rape.

In 2024, Ingalls was one of the two fraternity brothers expelled from Cornell University after an internal investigation found them responsible for sexual assault. He reportedly fled to Dubai in the wake of the alleged gang rape lawsuit filed in September 2026.


The 21-year-old grew up between the Middle East and the United States. He went to Dubai International Academy. It is a well-known elite school located in what is known as the “Beverly Hills of Dubai.”

The school was listed as Ingalls’ alma mater on Cornell University’s rugby roster for 2023-2024, when he played on the team. Citing a 2020 article, The Post reported that Ingalls was embarrassed by his American citizenship while attending the posh school. He further stated that the embarrassment stemmed from having to explain to people in the United Arab Emirates that he was not “a Trump supporter.”

Here’s what we know about his father

Matthew Burtchaell Ingalls, father of Ingalls, is a professor of Islamic studies at the American University in Dubai. According to The Post, he has been teaching since 2016. He also chairs the Department of Middle Eastern Studies in the university. His mother Yasmine Khattab is Egyptian.


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Matthew, 48, converted to Islam. In a 2021 article, he complained that the research on Islam was too focused on terrorism. “Much of the research in the Americas focused on questions of assimilation or terrorism and neglected the more basic issues of belief, practice, and community,” he wrote in the research paper, as quoted by The Post. “Islam, in other words, was framed as a problem, not a way of life.”

He earned a doctorate in Islamic studies from Yale University in 2011. Prior to that, he received a master’s degree in Arabic studies from the American University in Cairo in 2004.