Awards
Outstanding Article Award, Poverty, Class, and Inequality Division, Society for the Study of Social Problems, 2023
Doris Entwisle Early Career Award, Sociology of Education Section, American Sociological Association, 2021
Head Start BOLD Alumni Award, National Head Start Association, 2021
C. Wright Mills Award, Finalist, Society for the Study of Social Problems, 2020
Pierre Bourdieu Best Book Award, Honorable Mention, Section on Sociology of Education, American Sociological Association, 2020
From the Committee: “A powerful narrative seldom delivered as clearly and personally in academic writing on higher education as this. Evidence could easily be marshalled to match the qualitative thesis—that elite universities stack their diversity numbers with advantaged minority students—but this perhaps is known well enough that his accounting is all that is needed to impact the field (and it has)."
Michael Harrington Award, Poverty, Class, and Inequality Division, Society for the Study of Social Problems, 2020
“This award will be granted to an individual, organization, faculty, or student that by their actions advances our understanding of poverty, social class, and/or inequality, and/or proposes effective and practical ways to attend to the needs of the economically marginalized and reduce class inequalities."
Outstanding Book Award, Social Problems Theory Division, Society for the Study of Social Problems, 2020
From the Committee: “The Privileged Poor is a detailed, comparative ethnographic study of an important topic in the history and sociology of inequality, race, and education in America. By successfully separating the effects of social class and race on inclusion within an elite educational institution it uses its strengths in analysis and descriptive detail to develop policy implications at both the institutional and governmental level."
PROSE Award, Finalist, Education Practice, Association of American Publishers, 2020
The PROSE Awards annually recognize the very best in professional and scholarly publishing by bringing attention to distinguished books, journals, and electronic content.
Mirra Komarovsky Book Award, Eastern Sociological Society, 2020
From the committee: Anthony Jack’s book, The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges are Failing Disadvantaged Students offers a moving, nuanced account of how students from underrepresented groups are admitted into elite schools and then abandoned. Offering us a crucial distinction between the privileged poor, who enter elite institutions from wealthy private schools as scholarship students, and the doubly disadvantaged, students who enter elite institutions from under-resourced public high schools, Jack’s work charts a new path forward for sociology and for all of us in higher education. Along the way, he presents concrete strategies through which to combat class exclusion and food insecurity on our campuses. Jack’s integration of his own biography with his sociology allows for us as readers to understand the problem as our own. Committee members were able to read this book and identify with the story, even as we were impressed with the book’s theoretical sophistication, methodological transparency and meticulousness and the elegant writing. As one of the many nominators put it, “this book is a rarity in its ability to speak to multiple stakeholders: sociologists from multiple areas (stratification, race, and education, among others), scholars of education, other social scientists interested in social inequality, college and university administrators, parents, and students. . . it brings race to the forefront of the experiential core of college life and [illuminates] the role that structural inequalities assume in these experiences.” The book has received considerable media attention from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chronicle of Higher Education and many others. And more importantly, the findings of this book are already being implemented into policy changes in colleges and universities across the country. For its brilliance in illuminating the structural inequalities that have been hidden in plain sight, right in sociologists’ backyards, we are delighted to award this book the 2020 Mirra Komarovsky Book Prize.
CEP Mildred García Award for Exemplary Scholarship (Junior), Association for the Study of Higher Education, 2019
The purpose of the García Award for Exemplary Scholarship is to recognize one junior, nontenured scholar-practitioner for seminal, exemplary scholarship that focuses on research and issues specifically related to underrepresented populations of color.
Critics’ Choice Book Award, American Educational Studies Association, 2019
Each year, a committee of American Educational Studies Association members selects a number of titles it regards as outstanding books that may be of interest to those in educational studies. These books are designated as AESA Critics’ Choice Award winners. The Critics’ Choice Award serves to recognize and increase awareness of recent scholarship deemed to be outstanding in its field and of potential interest to members of the Association.
Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize, Harvard University Press, 2018
The Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize honors the memory of Thomas J. Wilson, director of Harvard University Press from 1947 to 1967. It is awarded to an author’s first book manuscript, approved for publication by the Board of Syndics of Harvard University Press in a given calendar year, that is judged outstanding in content, style, and mode of presentation. The author’s mastery of his or her field of interest and ability to fit his or her special contribution into some major problem in that field are a determining factor in the award of the prize. Eligible books are judged in terms of effective achievement of the author’s purpose.
Amherst College Harold Wade Jr. ‘68 Fellowship, Amherst College, 2016 - 2019
The Wade Fellows Program was established in 1976 in honor of Harold Wade Jr. ‘68. While a student, Harold Wade Jr. worked to strengthen the black community at Amherst, including organizing the Afro American Society and Initiation recruitment materials aimed at attracting black high school students to Amherst. His book, Black Men of Amherst, was published posthumously by the college and is an important work that documents the achievements of many black Amherst graduates. The Harold Wade Jr. Memorial Fund Fellowships is designed to supplement the College’s career counseling by bringing back one to two black graduates each year to meet with all students. The returning fellows are from all walks of life and all age groups, and they share their Amherst and post-Amherst experiences with student through participation in classes, informational meetings and lectures.
National Center of Institution Diversity Emerging Diversity Scholar, University of Michigan, 2016
The National Center for Institutional Diversity supports and administers several fellowships and awards to support scholars whose efforts center around enhancing diversity in the academy. This award seeks extraordinarily promising scholars whose research, teaching, and/or service will contribute to diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education. The program is particularly interested in scholars with a demonstrated interest in bringing to their research and undergraduate teaching the critical perspective that comes from their nontraditional educational background and/or scholarly understanding of the experiences of groups who are historically underrepresented in higher education.
Tribute to Black Men Faculty Award, Association of Black Harvard Women, Harvard University, 2015
Each year Association of Black Harvard Women organizes Tribute to Black Men, a celebration of Black men on and off campus. The Tribute Board, a board of ten undergraduate black women, selected black male leaders in black student organizations and in off-campus groups that address broader black issues.
Graduate Student Paper Award, Education Problems Division, Society of the Study of Social Problems, 2015
The SSSP and its sponsors are proud to recognize outstanding scholars, practitioners, advocates, and students who demonstrate active pursuit in the application of critical, scientific, and humanistic perspectives to the study of vital social problems.
Star Family Prize for Excellence in Advising Award, Harvard College, 2015
The Star Family Prize for Excellence in Advising were established by James A. Star (AB 1993) to recognize and reward individuals who contribute to the College through their exemplary intellectual and personal guidance of undergraduate students.
Charles V. Willie Minority Graduate Student Award, Eastern Sociological Society, 2015
The Charles V. Willie Minority Graduate Student Award is an annual award given to a minority student who demonstrates exceptional scholarly promise. The award was established at the 2013 meeting in honor of Dr. Charles V. Willie in recognition of his work on racial and ethnic minorities, his support of minority graduate students, and his invaluable contributions to ESS. The purpose of this award is to give recognition to minority graduate students for outstanding scholarly promise; increase the number and visibility of minority voices within the organization; reinforce the organization’s purpose of directly supporting the production, discovery, and dissemination of excellent sociological scholarship.
Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Award, Section on Children and Youth, American Sociological Association, 2014
The purpose of the Section on Children and Youth through American Sociological Association is to encourage the development and dissemination of sociological perspectives on children in the areas of research, theory, policy, practice, and teaching. The Section on Children and Youth Outstanding Graduate Student Paper award recognizes an outstanding paper authored by one or more graduate students.
David Lee Stevenson Award for best Graduate Student Paper, Honorable Mention, Sociology of Education Section, American Sociological Association 2014
The purpose of the Section on Sociology of Education is to foster the development of this aspect of sociology and its application through the study of the ways in which formal schooling influences individuals and the ways society affects educational institutions. This award is for the outstanding graduate student paper in the field of sociology of education in 2016 or 2017.
Harvard College Race Relations Advisor Award, 2013
Every year, the Harvard Foundation holds an award ceremony to honor those who have contributed to intercultural and race relations on campus. The awardees include students from a variety of Houses and class years, all working to promote intercultural understanding on campus. Awardees are selected through nominations from house masters, resident deans, tutors, proctors, faculty, and their peers.
The Obed Finch Slingerland Memorial Prize, Amherst College, 2007
The Obed Finch Slingerland Memorial Prize is awarded by the Trustees of the College to a member of the senior class, who has shown by his/her own determination and accomplishment the greatest appreciation of and desire for a college education.
The Third Moseley Prize (Senior Thesis in Religion), Amherst College, 2007
The Moseley Prizes, which were established by Thomas Moseley of Hyde Park in 1872, are awarded annually. Prizes will be awarded for substantial essays, term papers, or honors theses that take a scholarly approach to the study of religion. The approach may be historical, literary, philosophical or scientific, but the focus of the submission must be on a subject matter that falls within the purview of the field of Religious Studies (or a pattern of religious thought, sensibility, or conduct).
John Summer Runnells Memorial Award for Scholarship and Citizenship, Amherst College, 2006
The John Sumner Runnells Memorial, established in memory of John Sumner Runnells of the Class of 1865, is awarded to that member of the junior class who shall, in the opinion of the Trustees of the College, be preeminent in zeal for knowledge and industry to attain it.
Fellowships
University of Michigan Society of Fellow (Declined), 2016
Dartmouth Society of Fellows (finalist, withdrew), 2016
Princeton Society of Fellows (finalist, withdrew), 2016
National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship, 2015
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, 2010
Ford Foundation Diversity, Predoctoral Fellowship, 2010
C. Scott Porter Fellowship, Amherst College, 2010
Amherst College Memorial Fellowship, Amherst College, 2008-2011
Grants
William F. Milton Fund, 2018
Graduate Student Council Conference Grant, Harvard University, 2014
Research SEED Grant, Center for American Political Studies, 2010, 2013