Claudia Mitchell-Kernan

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As Vice Chancellor for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate Division, Claudia Mitchell-Kernan serves as the campuswide advocate for the advancement of graduate education and works to insure that standards of excellence, fairness and equity are maintained across all graduate programs. Over the course of her career as an anthropologist, she has conducted research in Samoa, Belize, Jamaica and the United States. Concurrent with her administrative responsibilities, she is a professor in the Departments of Anthropology and Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley and her B.A. and M.A. degrees from Indiana University. Before coming to UCLA in 1973, she was a member of the faculty at Harvard University.

Much of Dr. Mitchell-Kernan's early work was in the area of linguistic anthropology and her classic research in the late 1960s and early 1970s on the speech patterns of African Americans is widely cited to this day. Her most recent book, The Decline in Marriage Among African Americans, co-edited with M. Belinda Tucker, was published in 1995 by Russell Sage. Other books include such topics as children's discourse, television and the socialization of ethnic minority children, and linguistic patterns of African American children. She currently conducts research on marriage and family formation patterns in the United States.

Throughout her career, she has maintained an active record of service nationally to federal agencies that sponsor research. She currently serves on the Board of Higher Education and Workforce of the National Research Council; the Board of Directors of the Council of Graduate Schools, and chairs its Advisory Committee on Minorities in Graduate Education; and the Board of Directors of the Consortium of Social Science Associations. She has also recently served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE); the Advisory Board of the National Security Education Program; and the Board of Deans of the Africa America Institute. President Clinton appointed her to the National Science Board for a six-year term in 1994. The National Science Board provides advice to the President and Congress on issues affecting Science & Technology, and governs the National Science Foundation, our country's premier agency for the support of basic science. In 1996, she received a Distinguished Service Award from the Caribbean Studies Association and in 1997, Indiana University awarded her its Distinguished Alumni Service Award.

Locally, she has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles based Golden State Minority Foundation, the Board of Directors of the Venice Family Clinic and received the President's Achievement Award of the Greater Los Angeles African American Chamber of Commerce in 1996. She is a member of the American Anthropological Association, the Caribbean Studies Association, the Los Angeles Trusteeship, the International Women's Forum, and the Pacific Council on Foreign Affairs. In her 30 year career at UCLA, she has been extensively involved in campus governance and has served on a wide variety of departmental, campus and university wide committees.