Obama appoints Hammonds to advisory commission on education

Evelynn M. Hammonds, the Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science and of African and African American Studies at Harvard, has been appointed by President Obama to the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans, it was announced Wednesday.

Hammonds has served as a member of the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities since 2010. From 2008 to 2013, Hammonds served as dean of Harvard College and from 2005 to 2008 she was senior vice president for faculty development and diversity at Harvard.

Hammonds joined the Harvard faculty after teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1993 to 2002, where she founded the Center for the Study of Diversity in Science, Technology, and Medicine. She is a member of the Committee on Equal Opportunity in Science and Engineering, and serves on a number of boards, including the Board of Overseers of the Museum of Science in Boston and the Board of Trustees of Spelman College.

Hammonds received a B.S. from Spelman College, a B.E.E. from the Georgia Institute of Technology, an S.M. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.