News

Craig-Henderson Made Permanent Head of NSF’s Social and Behavioral Science Directorate

June 17, 2022 1422

Psychologist Kellina Craig-Henderson, who has been serving as the acting head of the National Science Foundation’s Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate, has been appointed as the permanent boss.

Craig-Henderson has been serving as the acting head since January, when Arthur ‘Skip’ Lupia’s appointment expired. She had served as deputy assistant director of the directorate during Lupia’s tenure, one of several high-profile jobs she has had at the National Science Foundation (NSF) over the last 16 years.

As its name suggests, the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate (SBE) supports fundamental research in behavioral, cognitive, social and economic science. By budget, it is the smallest of the seven research directorates at the foundation, but the quarter billion dollars it allocates in grants annually is the primary source of funding for academic social science basic research in the United States.

Kellina Craig-Henderson

Before coming to the foundation, Craig-Henderson served on the faculty in the Department of Psychology and in the Afro-American Studies and Research Program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She also served in the Psychology Department at California State University, Long Beach. In addition to her positions atop the SBE directorate, she has served as deputy division director of the directorate’s Social and Economic Sciences Division and director of the foundation’s Tokyo Regional Office.

Her own research program focuses on studies of groups, cross-cultural, gender and race issues, as well as aggression and expatriation processes. Her published work includes two books, Black Men in Interracial Relationships: What’s Love Got to Do with It? and Black Women in Interracial Relationships: In Search of Love and Solace.

A release from NSF reports that “Craig-Henderson is passionate about broadening the participation of underrepresented groups and has been involved in several national and international activities that share this focus.”  She has promoted the establishment of new social science funding mechanisms, such as Build and Broaden, that support evidence-based research on the science of broadening participation.

Craig-Henderson received her bachelor’s from Wesleyan University and her master’s in social science from the University of Chicago. She earned a master’s and a doctorate in psychology from Tulane University.

Related Articles

Alondra Nelson Named to U.S. National Science Board
Announcements
October 18, 2024

Alondra Nelson Named to U.S. National Science Board

Read Now
Diving Into OSTP’s ‘Blueprint’ for Using Social and Behavioral Science in Policy
Bookshelf
October 14, 2024

Diving Into OSTP’s ‘Blueprint’ for Using Social and Behavioral Science in Policy

Read Now
Lee Miller: Ethics, photography and ethnography
News
September 30, 2024

Lee Miller: Ethics, photography and ethnography

Read Now
‘Settler Colonialism’ and the Promised Land
International Debate
September 27, 2024

‘Settler Colonialism’ and the Promised Land

Read Now
Partnership Marks Milestone in Advancing Black Scholarship 

Partnership Marks Milestone in Advancing Black Scholarship 

Three years ago, on the heels of a Black Lives Matter Movement energized after the horror of George Floyd’s murder, the global academic publisher Sage partnered with the Black-owned Universal Write Publications (UWP).  

Read Now
Deadline Nears for Comment on Republican Revamp Proposal for NIH

Deadline Nears for Comment on Republican Revamp Proposal for NIH

Republican legislators in the U.S. House of Representatives, arguing that “the American people’s trust in the National Institute of Health has been broken,” have released a blueprint for reforming the agency.

Read Now
Artificial Intelligence and the Social and Behavioral Sciences

Artificial Intelligence and the Social and Behavioral Sciences

Intelligence would generally be reckoned as the province of the social and behavioral sciences, so why is artificial intelligence so often relegated […]

Read Now
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

0 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments