College of Education Dean James D. Anderson, chemistry professor Nancy Makri, physics professor Nadya Mason and chemistry professor Kenneth Schweizer are among more than 250 new members named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences this year.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Education Dean James D. Anderson, physics professor Nadya Mason and chemistry professors Nancy Makri and Kenneth Schweizer have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the oldest honor societies in the nation.

They are among 252 new members elected to the academy this year, including artists, scholars, scientists and leaders in the public, nonprofit and private sectors.

Anderson is recognized as a groundbreaking scholar on the history of U.S. and African American education and achievement. His seminal book, “The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935,” won the American Educational Research Association’s outstanding book award in 1990. He also received the AERA’s highest honor, a Presidential Citation, in 2020.

A member of the National Academy of Education and the former senior editor of the journal History of Education Quarterly, Anderson served as an expert witness in a series of federal desegregation and affirmative action cases. He also was an adviser for and participant in several PBS documentaries, including “The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow” and “Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities.”

During his distinguished 47-year career at Illinois, Anderson has served in a variety of leadership roles and received several of its highest honors including selection as a Presidential Fellow, a Center for Advanced Study Professor of Education and the Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell Professor of Education.

Read about all Illinois' 2021 AAAS scholars in the UI News Bureau story...