Dr. Andrea Sankar nominated as a Distinguished University Service Professor

Over more than three decades, Dr. Sankar has drawn on the methods and insights of Anthropology to make a positive social impact beyond the academy. From her 1990s NIH-funded HIV/AIDS research on caregiving and therapy adherence in the African American community to her more recent research on the health effects of eating fish from the Detroit River, her scholarship has consistently been geared toward practical outcomes that benefit the broader public. In 2013, she collaborated with Arlene Weisz, School of Social Work, to create the Ph.D. in Social Work and Anthropology (or SWAN); in 2015, she helped develop the NSF-funded T-RUST urban sustainability program to train Ph. D. students for non-academic positions. Professor Sankar has made critical contributions to society through excellence in interdisciplinary and translational scholarship on pressing issues, innovative leadership within the university to produce highly accomplished practitioner-scholars, and embedded inquiry benefiting a variety of communities of place and identity, among other accomplishments. Professor Sankar's career is one of illustrious service to the university; to communities of place, identity, and practice; and to society at large.

The President is authorized to create a new faculty classification of Distinguished Service Professor. This classification is to be used in rare instances to designate senior members of the University faculty who have made extraordinary contributions to the University outside their own disciplines or who, by unusual service outside of the University, have brought great honor and recognition to this institution.