Professor Tracey Meares Selected as Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar
The Phi Beta Kappa Society has selected Tracey Meares, the Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law and a Founding Director of The Justice Collaboratory, as a 2020–2021 Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar.
Each year, members of the Committee on the Visiting Scholar Program select top scholars in the liberal arts and sciences to travel to universities and colleges where Phi Beta Kappa chapters are located. Visiting Scholars spend two days on each campus meeting informally with undergraduates, participating in classroom lectures and seminars, and giving one major lecture open to the academic community and general public.
Before joining the faculty at Yale, Meares was a professor at the University of Chicago Law School from 1995 to 2007, serving as Max Pam Professor and Director of the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice. She was the first African American woman to be granted tenure at both law schools. Professor Meares is a nationally recognized expert on policing in urban communities. Her research focuses on understanding how members of the public think about their relationship(s) with legal authorities such as police, prosecutors, and judges. She teaches courses on criminal procedure, criminal law, and policy, and she has worked extensively with the federal government. In April 2019, Professor Meares was elected as a member to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In December 2014, President Obama named her as a member of his Task Force on 21st Century Policing.
Founded in 1776, the Phi Beta Kappa Society is the nation’s oldest and most recognized academic honor society. It has chapters at 283 colleges and universities and more than half a million members throughout the country. Its mission is to champion education in the liberal arts and sciences, to recognize academic excellence, and to foster freedom of thought and expression.
Additional information about the Visiting Scholar Program can be found on Phi Beta Kappa’s website.
