Arline Geronimus to receive 2021 James S. Jackson Distinguished Career Award for Diversity Scholarship
July 22, 2021
ANN ARBOR – The National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID) and the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ODEI) are pleased to announce that Dr. Arline Geronimus, professor of health behavior & health education and associate director & research professor at the Population Studies Center in the Institute for Social Research — was selected as the 2021 recipient of the James S. Jackson Distinguished Career Award for Diversity Scholarship.
About Dr. Geronimus
Dr. Geronimus is a national and international leader in population health. She has made unique and seminal contributions to theory, empirical research, methodology, and practice as it relates to diversity. Her interdisciplinary abilities and collaborations have been consistently at the vanguard of several fields including public health, medicine, economics, political science, critical race theory, and applied anthropology.
Arline Geronimus
Over 30 years ago, Dr. Geronimus coined the term “weathering” to describe the effects of systemic structural and cultural oppression upon the body. Weathering refers not only to how life in America erodes the health of people of color, the poor, and other culturally oppressed people, but also to how they tenaciously resist such erosion, and how those efforts in turn have a complex mix of negative as well as positive consequences for their health. To be weathered is to be subjected to the structural challenges and existential insults that our society creates for those who are marginalized.
Her scholarly work evinces that she has long been sensitive to the fact that throughout US history, racism has constricted the democratic imagination and empathy for non-whites — and “others” more broadly defined — leading to limited notions of political community and citizenship with dire consequences.
The quality of her scholarship has been consistently recognized with an award list that encompasses the University of Michigan School of Public Health Excellence in Research Award and election to the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Geronimus’ research productivity, stature in the field, and acclaim for her many unique and significant contributions makes her one of the leading scholars in her field.
About the Award
The James S. Jackson Distinguished Career Award for Diversity Scholarship recognizes a senior faculty member at the University of Michigan who has made important contributions to understanding diversity, equity, and inclusion through research, scholarship and creative endeavors, who has an outstanding record as an educator in teaching and mentoring, and whose work has focused on issues of importance to underrepresented communities.