Alondra Nelson

Alondra Nelson is an award-winning American sociologist and writer. She is the inaugural Dean of Social Science at Columbia University in the City of New York.

Career

Nelson received her B.A. in anthropology with high distinction from the University of California at San Diego, graduating magna cum laude in 1994. At UCSD, she was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She earned a Ph.D. in American Studies from New York University in 2003.

From 2003-2009, she was Assistant Professor and Associate Professor of African American Studies and Sociology at Yale University, where she was the recipient of the Poorvu Family Award for Interdisciplinary Teaching and was a Faculty Fellow in Trumbull College. At Yale, Nelson was the first black woman to join the Department of Sociology faculty.

Nelson was recruited to Columbia from Yale in 2009. She is the first African American to be tenured in the Department of Sociology at this institution. She has directed the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality and is now Dean of Social Science for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and professor of sociology and gender studies at Columbia.