Announcing Pawan Dhingra as New AAAS President

The Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) is pleased to announce Pawan Dhingra as its new Board President. Dhingra will lead AAAS through 2024. Dhingra succeeds Jennifer Ho of University of Colorado Boulder, who led AAAS from 2019-2022.

“It is an honor to lead AAAS, which since its founding has been an essential resource for countless scholars,” said Dhingra. “I look forward to working with our membership and broader community to promote excellence in scholarship, foster meaningful connections, and more fully understand the experiences and histories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. I am grateful to my predecessor, Jennifer Ho, for her passion and determination in leading AAAS through the beginnings of the global pandemic, and through the ongoing waves of anti-Asian violence across the country.”  

During his time as president, Dhingra will work with the board to expand AAAS’s social outreach and impact, connect the Association with a wider range of scholars, and continue to make the Association a sustainable organization that supports scholarship for years to come. Learn more about the Board of AAAS here.

Dhingra’s appointment comes as AAAS recently updated its website and held its 2022 conference in Denver, the group’s first in-person conference since 2019. Learn more about the awards from the 2022 conference here.

About Pawan Dhingra

Dhingra is Associate Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty and Professor of American Studies at Amherst College. He is former Curator and Senior Advisor to the Smithsonian Institution’s Beyond Bollywood project. His award-winning publications include Hyper Education: Why Good Schools, Good Grades, and Good Behavior Are Not Enough (New York University Press, May 2020), Life Behind the Lobby: Indian American Motel Owners and the American Dream (Stanford University Press, 2012), and Managing Multicultural Lives: Asian American Professionals and the Challenge of Multiple Identities (Stanford University Press, 2007). He is the co-author of the widely-used Asian America (Polity Press 2021), now in its second edition. His bylines include The New York Times, CNN, Time Magazine, The Conversation, The Times of India, and more.

Before Amherst College, he was department chair and held tenured positions at Tufts University and Oberlin College, and was an Assistant Professor at Bucknell University. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Cornell University. He has been a member of AAAS since 1997.