ACLS Welcomes New Board Chair and Member

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) elected a new Chair of its board of directors and welcomed a new board member, as part of its 2024 Annual Meeting, which took place May 2-3 in Baltimore.

Marwan M. Kraidy was elected Chair during the Meeting of the Council, succeeding William C. Kirby, whose term ended this year. Kraidy is dean and CEO of Northwestern University in Qatar. His book The Naked Blogger of Cairo: Creative Insurgency in the Arab World (2016), an account of the Arab Spring, was crafted, in part, during his 2014 ACLS/NEH International and Areas Studies Fellowship. Kraidy has served on the ACLS board since 2017, most recently as Secretary, and will be succeeded in that role by Dana Williams, professor of African American literature and dean of the Graduate School at Howard University.

In addition, Roderick A. Ferguson became the newest member of the ACLS board. A professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. He is the 2020 recipient of the Kessler Award from the Center for LGBTQ Studies and is currently working on two monographs—In View of the Tradition: Art and Black Radicalism and The Bookshop of Black Queer Diaspora.

ACLS also extends its sincere appreciation to outgoing board members Peter Baldwin, Carl Pforzheimer III, William C. Kirby, and Richard J. Powell for their outstanding leadership, invaluable contributions, and generosity in service to and support of the ongoing mission and work of ACLS.