Diversity and Inclusion Award (Est. 2020)

The Diversity and Inclusion Award is bestowed upon alumni by the University of Illinois Alumni Association on behalf of the University of Illinois. This award recognizes those alumni who have demonstrated a commitment to promoting diversity and inclusion through their professional and/or voluntary achievements and whose accomplishments support the UIAA’s goal of promoting diversity, cross-culturalism, open-mindedness and respect within the University of Illinois community and beyond.

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  Tracey Meares, ’88 ENG

  Tracey Meares is the Walton Hale Hamilton Professor at Yale Law School, as well as a founding director of the school’s Justice Collaboratory. Before joining the faculty at Yale, she was the Max Pam Professor of Law and the director of the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice at the University of Chicago School of Law from 1995 to 2007. She received her JD from the University of Chicago School of Law, and she was the first African American woman to be granted tenure at both the University of Chicago and Yale law schools. 

  Meares is a nationally recognized expert on policing in urban communities. Her research focuses on understanding how members of the public think about their relationship(s) with legal authorities such as police, prosecutors and judges. She teaches courses on criminal procedure, criminal law and policy and theories of justice system transformation. She also has worked extensively with the federal government, having served on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Law and Justice, a National Research Council standing committee and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs Science Advisory Board.

  In April 2019, Meares was elected as a member to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In December 2014, President Obama named her as a member of his Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

• 2020s