Angela Onwuachi-Willig received her PhD from Yale’s Departments of Sociology and African-American Studies in May 2017. Entitled, “The Trauma of Till and Trayvon,” her thesis considered themes relating to the politics of representation, race, community, violence, and inequality. It developed and deployed the cultural trauma paradigm associated with the Yale Center for Cultural Sociology. Aside from being a sociologist, Dr. Onwuachi-Willig is also a legal scholar with expertise in race, gender, and civil rights law. She is moving from Berkeley to become Dean of the Law School at Boston University.
Willig says of her move: “I am honored and excited to have this opportunity to serve as the Dean at Boston University School of Law. It’s a wonderful institution with a rich history of access and inclusiveness, and the people who comprise the BU Law community are simply amazing. The faculty are accomplished scholars and excellent teachers, and the students are incredibly smart and talented.”
We asked her what she had gained from her time with us and she responded: “I am very grateful for all I learned during my studies in the Sociology PhD program at Yale. Not only did my graduate work in Sociology and African-American Studies make me a better legal scholar, it will also make me a more effective administrator. My studies exposed me to new frames of thinking and research methods, it offered me meaningful opportunity to engage in interdisciplinary projects with scholars in other disciplines, and it gave me great insight into the vast possibilities for collaboration between departments on a university campus. I fully expect to draw from all of these experiences in my role as Dean.”
Congratulations Dean Onwuachi-Willig!