Newly-appointed Ford School collegiate professor of public policy Celeste Watkins-Hayes has received two awards from the American Sociological Association for her book Remaking a Life: How Women Living with HIV/AIDS Confront Inequality (2019, University of California Press).
The ASA’s Section on the Sociology of Sex and Gender bestowed its 2020 Distinguished Book Award recognizing the book’s scholarly contributions and cutting edge sociological inquiry.
She also was named as the winner of the 2020 Eliot Freidson award, given to a book or journal article that has had a major impact on the field of medical sociology. In the citation, the award committee said it was “very impressed with the depth of your data collection and the many contributions of your book to both medical sociology and other fields in sociology. Your book very nicely demonstrated a case of the social safety net doing what it is intended to do--in this case, providing women with HIV with the support necessary to not only get by, but ‘transform’ their lives in multidimensional ways. The book was beautifully written, and we expect that scholars in medical sociology and beyond will benefit from its insights for years to come.”
The awards will be given at the (virtual) ASA Annual Meeting in August and in person at the ASA’s 2021 meeting.
Congratulations Dr. Watkins-Hayes!
Dr. Celeste Watkins-Hayes is a collegiate professor of Public Policy at the Ford School and of Sociology in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. Watkins-Hayes has published two books, numerous articles in journals and edited volumes, and pieces in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Chicago Magazine. She has been widely quoted in the popular press as a national expert on social inequality and HIV/AIDS. Prior to coming to the University of Michigan, Watkins-Hayes served as an Associate Vice President for Research, professor of sociology and African American studies, and an Institute for Policy Research faculty fellow at Northwestern University. She holds a PhD and MA in Sociology from Harvard University and a BA from Spelman College, where she graduated summa cum laude. Watkins-Hayes served on the board of trustees of Spelman College for over a decade in various leadership roles, leading the search process for the college’s 10th president. She currently serves on the board of directors of the Detroit Institute of Arts.
