Honors & Awards

Lekelia Jenkins, an associate professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University, has been named a fellow of the International Science Council, the highest honor that can be conferred on an individual by the council.

Julius B. Fleming, Jr., assistant professor of English at the University of Maryland, College Park, is the winner of the Hooks National Book Award from the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis.

Dr. Young is associate dean for academics and land-grant programs at Tennessee State University. The award recognizes excellence in agricultural sciences teaching and student engagement.

The Black Authors Matter Children’s Book Awards were established to honor excellence in African American literature. A panel of award-winning and/or award-nominated authors evaluated more than 150 entries. Frank X Walker is the first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate. He is a professor of English and African American and Africana studies at the University of Kentucky.

The Modern Language Association of America announced it is awarding its first annual Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for African Studies to Belinda Edmondson, Distinguished Professor in the departments of English and Africana studies at Rutgers University-Newark.

Tina Post, an assistant professor of English at the University of Chicago, recently received the Best Book Prize from the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present.

Dorothy Butler Gilliam was the first African American woman reporter at the Washington Post. She taught at Howard University, American University, and the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs.

K.C. Mmeje is vice president for student affairs at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. The NASPA Pillars of the Profession Award acknowledges remarkable individuals within the student affairs and higher education community who demonstrate exceptional contributions to both the profession and the organization.

Charles D. Brown II, an assistant professor of physics at Yale University, has been selected as the winner the Joseph A. Johnson Award for Excellence from the American Institute of Physics and the National Society of Black Physicists.

Gwendolyn D. Pough, dean’s professor of the humanities and professor in the department of women’s and gender studies at Syracuse University in New York, is the latest recipient of the 2023 Ede Mentoring Award from the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric & Composition. The biennial award recognizes impactful mentorship of students, campus leadership, professionals, and others.

In 1985, Professor Carson was asked by Coretta Scott King, Dr. King’s widow, to direct The King Papers Project with the mission of assembling and publishing the collected papers of her late husband.

Dr. Acoff became dean of the School of Engineering at the University of Mississippi on July 1. She is the first woman and first African American to hold the position. From 2014 to 2023, she was the associate dean for undergraduate and graduate programs at the University of Alabama.

Monica W. Walker, dean of instruction at the Community College of Baltimore County, recently received the 2023 Anna Julia Cooper Excellence Award from the Society for Experiential Education. The award recognizes Dr. Walker’s outstanding leadership of initiatives that demonstrate an exceptional commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in experiential education.

Riché Richardson, professor of African American literature in the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University in Ithaca New York, has been awarded the C. Hugh Holman Award from the Society for the Study of Southern Literature. The award will be presented to Professor Richardson at the Modern Language Association conference in January 2024.

The prize is given annually to an individual whose ideas have profoundly shaped human self-understanding and advancement in a rapidly changing world. Professor Collins joined the faculty at the University of Maryland in 2005. Earlier, she was the director of the African American Center at Tufts University and spent more than 20 years on the faculty at the University of Cincinnati.

Alvine Kamaha, assistant professor of physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, won the 2024 Edward A. Bouchet Award from the American Physical Society for her leadership and accomplishments in the experimental search for dark matter in the universe and advancement of underrepresented minority scientists.

The James Dent Walker Award is the highest national award that can be bestowed by the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society upon a person who has exhibited distinguished accomplishments through a significant and measurable contribution to the research, documentation, and/or preservation of African American history.

Dr. Reid, who is the immediate past president of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, was honored for his sustained contributions to both the HFES and the broader discipline, marking him as an influential figure in the human factors and ergonomics community.

Established by the Carnegie Corporation of New York as part of its centennial celebration, the prize recognizes trailblazers in the brain and behavioral sciences whose research has helped advance the field and its applications.

Robin Nelson, an associate professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University, is being recognized for “her outstanding contributions to understanding human relationships and their evolutionary impact.”