Five Princeton faculty elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Princeton faculty members Mitchell Duneier, J. Nicole Shelton, Keith Wailoo, Nieng Yan and Deborah Yashar, as well as Presidential Visiting Scholar in the Lewis Center for the Arts Hilton Als of The New Yorker have been elected to the Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Also elected are Princeton alumni Michael Hanchard, the Gustav C. Kuemmerle Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, a 1991 graduate alumnus; and Gregory Huber, the Forst Family Professor of Political Science at Yale University, a 2001 graduate alumnus.

They are among more than 250 leaders in academia, the arts, business, government and public affairs elected this year in recognition of their respective fields.

Mitchell Duneier, J. Nicole Shelton, Keith Wailoo, Nieng Yan and Deborah Yashar
Mitchell Duneier (left), professor of sociology; J. Nicole Shelton, the Stuart Professor of Psychology; Keith Wailoo, the Henry Putnam University Professor of History and Public Affairs; Nieng Yan, the Shirley M. Tilghman Professor of Molecular Biology; and Deborah Yashar, professor of politics and international affairs.

Photos (from left): Courtesy of the Department of Sociology; by Sameer A. Khan/Fotobuddy; Denise Applewhite, Office of Communications; and Egan Jimenez, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs
Mitchell Duneier
Duneier, professor of sociology, focuses on ethnographic research with an eye toward revealing both the common and distinctive elements of humanity. His urban ethnographic projects have pivotal agendas that are both scientific and political: to systematically study the lives of the urban poor in a period of U.S. history characterized by a strong current of ideological and cultural dehumanization of marginalized social groups.

J. Nicole Shelton
Shelton is the Stuart Professor of Psychology. Her research examines social interactions between whites and ethnic minorities, and explores how prejudice and interpersonal concerns about issues of prejudice influence the dynamics of intergroup interactions, as well as how situational factors influence the development and maintenance of cross-racial friendships.

Keith Wailoo
Wailoo is the Henry Putnam University Professor of History and Public Affairs. His research straddles history and health policy, touching on drugs and drug policy, politics of race and health, the interplay of identity, ethnicity, gender and medicine, and controversies in genetics and society. His next book is “Pushing Cool: Big Tobacco, Racial Marketing, and the Untold Story of the Menthol Cigarette,” forthcoming in 2021 from the University of Chicago Press.

Nieng Yan
Yan is the Shirley M. Tilghman Professor of Molecular Biology. Her research areas include biochemistry, biophysics and structural biology.

Deborah Yashar
Yashar is a professor of politics and international affairs. Her research interests include regime politics, citizenship rights, social movements, ethnic politics, state formation, violence and immigration politics. She is also the editor of World Politics.