The Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (DBASSE) is pleased to announce that Dr. Carlotta M. Arthur has been selected as the new executive director of DBASSE.
Dr. Arthur joins DBASSE from the Henry Luce Foundation, where she serves as director of its Clare Boothe Luce (CBL) Program for Women in STEM, which provides significant support for women in science, mathematics and engineering in higher education and has made more than $200 million in grants since its inception. During her tenure, Arthur has expanded the national and global profile of CBL and the Luce Foundation’s activities to transform STEM systems and structures through the lens of equity and inclusion. Prior to her time at the Luce Foundation, Arthur served as director of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, Diversity Initiatives, HBCU, and Appalachian Colleges Programs at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Gregory Symmes, chief program officer of the National Academies, praised the appointment as “Dr. Arthur’s national and global relationships with women scholars, passion for a wide range of issues at the intersection of people and technology, and extensive experience with the full cycle of philanthropic funding as both a sponsor and a grantee, will be extremely valuable for the National Academies.”
Arthur was the first African American woman to earn a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering from Purdue University. After a decade in the aerospace and automotive industries, she completed an M.A. in Psychology and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, with an emphasis on psychophysiology/health psychology, from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She was a member of the inaugural cohort of W.K. Kellogg Scholars in Health Disparities at the Harvard School of Public Health and has served as an Assistant Professor at Meharry Medical College, an HBCU in Nashville, TN; an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Smith College; and as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine.
DBASSE Advisory Committee Chair Mike Hout, Professor of Sociology at New York University, said that Dr. Arthur “knows well that the impact of behavioral and social science depends on our ability to address the nation’s questions without jargon and without delay. I look forward to the opportunity to work together with her as we strive to be responsive and effective.”
Dr. Arthur will be joining the National Academies on February 14th and succeeds Mary Ellen O’Connell, who will be retiring after more than 20 years of service with the National Academies, serving as executive director of DBASSE since 2016.