Mary Pattillo

Mary Pattillo is an American professor and ethnographer of African American studies at Northwestern University. She is the Harold Washington Professor of Sociology and chair of the Department of Black Studies. As of 2016, she has served as director of undergraduate studies in African American studies and has been a faculty associate in Northwestern's Institute for Policy Research since 2004.

Influences Pattillo's parents grew up in Louisiana during segregation. Louisiana State University paid for her father to attend medical school out of state rather than enroll a black student.

Pattillo's experiences growing up in a middle-class Black family were formative to her research and teaching. Living in a Black community in Milwaukee and moving from a segregated elementary school to being bused into a wealthy white suburban high school generated Pattillo's interest in sociology and provided her with some of the research questions she continues to answer in her studies. As Milwaukee and her current residence of Chicago are located in close proximity to each other in the Midwest, both have large, diverse, and vibrant African American communities, and both are hypersegregated, Pattillo often draws parallels between the two in writings and interviews.

Civic engagement Pattillo is a founding board member and current Board Vice-chair at Urban Prep Academies, a charter high school network for boys in Chicago that educates a predominantly Black student body. She also serves as a board member of The Chicago Community Trust's African American Legacy Initiative and is on the Advisory Committee of the National Public Housing Museum. Black on the Block (University of Chicago Press, 2007)

Honors

Fellow, Straus Institute for the Advanced Study of Law and Justice, New York University School of Law Northwestern Associated Student Government Faculty Honor Roll, 2008 Visiting professor, Observatoire sociologique du changement (OSC), Sciences Po, Paris, France, 2008 Winner of the Robert Park Best Book Award, Community and Urban Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association for Black on the Block, 2007 Honorable Mention, Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Book Award, Race, Class, Gender Section of the American Sociological Association for Black on the Block, 2007 "Favorite Books of 2007," Chicago Tribune for Black on the Block Received City of Chicago Resolution in honor of Black on the Block, 2007 Received Columbia College Alumna Achievement Award, 2004 Named Northwestern University Arthur Andersen Research and Teaching Professor in 2004 Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad Program, Brazil, 2003 Visiting scholar, Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, University of Chicago, 2002-2003 Faculty affiliate, Alice Berline Kaplan Center for the Humanities, Northwestern University, 2000-2001 Outstanding Academic Book Award, Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, 2000 Winner of the Oliver Cromwell Cox Best Book Award, Racial and Ethnic Minorities Section, American Sociological Association for Black Picket Fences, 2000 Honorable Mention, Robert Park Award for Distinguished Book Publication, Community and Urban Sociology Section, American Sociological Association, for Black Picket Fences, 2000 Visiting Minority Fellow, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin, 2000 Distinguished Article Award, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1999 Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Poverty, the Underclass, and Public Policy, University of Michigan, 1997-1998