W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute

The W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research was established in 1969. It is named after W. E. B. Du Bois, who was the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University (1895).[1]

The center was the basis for the foundation of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, and is now one of several institutes under the umbrella of this center.[2]

The Institute awards up to twenty fellowships annually to scholars at various stages in their careers in the fields of African and African-American studies to facilitate the writing of doctoral dissertations. The appointed fellows conduct individual research for a semester or two in fields broadly related to African and African American Studies. It has as of 2020 supported more than 300 Fellows.[3]

The Institute co-hosts the W. E. B. Du Bois Society, an academic and cultural enrichment program for African American secondary school students, along with Ella J. Baker House in Dorchester, Boston. Founded by Jacqueline and Rev. Eugene C. Rivers, the director as of 2020 is Jacqueline O. Cooke Rivers.[4]

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the director of the Institute.[5]

The advisory board is made up of the following people:

• Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Chair of the Board of Advisors) – Harvard University Department of African and African American Studies, chair W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, director
• Emmanuel K. Akyeampong – Harvard College professor and professor of history and of African and African American studies (chair, Committee on African Studies)
• Suzanne Preston Blier – Allen Whitehill Clowes Professor of Fine Arts and African and African American Studies, Harvard University, Department of African and African American Studies and Department of the History of Art and Architecture
• James I. Cash, Jr. – Harvard Business School (Retired)
• Felton James Earls – Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, Harvard Medical School
• Lani Guinier – Bennett Boskey Professor of Law Harvard Law School
• Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham – Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and African and African American Studies, Harvard University, American Studies and Department of History
• Linda Hill – Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
• Jennifer Hochschild – Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government, Harvard University Department of Government
• Caroline M. Hoxby – Department of Economics Harvard University, Harvard College Professorship
• Randall L. Kennedy – Professor of Law Harvard Law School
• Martin Luther Kilson – Frank G. Thomson Research Professor of Government, Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government (Emeritus)
• Florence C. Ladd – Harvard University
• Michele Lamont – Harvard University Department of Sociology
• Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot – Emily Hargroves Fisher Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education
• Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. – Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
• Gary Orfield, Professor of Education and Social Policy, Harvard Graduate School of Education
• Orlando Patterson – John Cowles Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology Harvard University
• Alvin F. Poussaint – Judge Baker Children's Center, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Associate Dean for Student Affairs, Harvard Medical School
• Robert J. Sampson – Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, Department of Sociology Harvard University
• Deborah Prothrow-Stith – Associate Dean for Faculty Development, Harvard School of Public Health
• David A. Thomas – H. Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
• Charles Vert Willie – Harvard Graduate School of Education (Emeritus)
• David B. Wilkins – Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
• Preston N. Williams – Houghton Professor of Theology and Contemporary Change

• Official website