Robert Sellers to receive the 2023 James S. Jackson Distinguished Career Award for Diversity Scholarship
The award is given biennially to a senior faculty member who has made significant contributions to understanding diversity, equity, and inclusion while addressing disparities in contemporary society.
Robert Sellers, the Charles D. Moody Collegiate Professor of Psychology, has been named the recipient of the 2023 James S. Jackson Distinguished Career Award for Diversity Scholarship, reports The University Record. The award is jointly administered by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and the National Center for Institutional Diversity.
“Dr. Sellers’ body of work on the life experiences of African Americans has offered new theoretical lenses and cutting-edge empirical research methods on race and identity processes across multiple fields and disciplines,” said Laurie McCauley, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.
“He also exemplifies the spirit of the award through his mentoring and creation of research training structures for generations of students and early career scholars who have gone on to be faculty and academic and intellectual leaders across the country.”
Sellers is a professor of psychology in LSA and professor of education in the Marsal Family School of Education. His research has focused on the role of race in African Americans’ psychological lives. He and his students have developed a conceptual and empirical model of African American racial identity.
He also has investigated the processes by which African American parents transmit messages about race to their children, as well as how African Americans suffer from, and often cope with, racial discrimination. Sellers co-founded the Center for the Study of Black Youth in Context.
“Having been a former student and knowing the enormity of James Jackson’s tremendous legacy as a scholar, teacher, administrator, innovator and person, I am beyond humbled to receive this award in his name,” Sellers said.