Lois Weis Named SUNY Distinguished Professor

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The State University Board of Trustees has awarded the distinction of SUNY Distinguished Professor to Lois M. Weis, professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy in the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education.

The rank of distinguished professor, the highest faculty rank in the SUNY system, is an order above full professorship and has three co-equal designations: distinguished professor, distinguished service professor and distinguished teaching professor. The awards are given to full professors of national or international prominence for outstanding achievement in research and scholarship.

Weis, who was named a UB Distinguished Professor in 2005, joined the UB faculty in 1978. She is considered one of the most prominent researchers in the world today on economic and social class issues as they broadly relate to schools and educational institutions. Her ethnographic research has provided new ways to understand and further study the connections between and among social class, race, gender, schooling and the global economy, and she is widely known for breaking new theoretical and methodological ground related to these issues. Set against the backdrop of changes in the economic and social context of the late 20th and early 21st century, Weis's work probes the current predicament of the working-class and the role gender and race play in their lives in light of de-industrialization and the realignment of the global economy, new patterns of emigration and the movement of cultural and economic capital across national borders.

During her 28-year career, Weis has been a prolific scholar, having authored or co-authored 20 books, 52 journal articles and 40 book chapters. Her widely cited work has been supported by grants from the Spencer Foundation and the Carnegie Foundation. She is a winner of the outstanding book award from the prestigious Gustavus Meyers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America, as well as a seven-time winner of the American Educational Studies Association's Critic's Choice Award, given to an outstanding book.

Weis, who earned a doctorate in educational policy studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1978, is a past president of the American Educational Studies Association and has been on the editorial boards of numerous leading journals, including Educational Policy, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education and Review of Educational Research. She is the editor of the "Power, Social Identity and Education" series for SUNY Press, and speaks widely about her research nationally and internationally.

She resides in Buffalo.