Shalini Shankar

Candidate statement

Shalini Shankar is Professor of Anthropology and Asian American Studies at Northwestern University. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from New York University (2003) and B.A. in Anthropology from Wesleyan University, CT (1994). A scholar of linguistic and sociocultural anthropology and Critical Ethnic Studies, she studies language, semiotics, race, caste, youth, material culture, media, and technology. Author of Beeline: What Spelling Bees Reveal about Generation Z’s New Path to Success (Basic Books, 2019), Advertising Diversity: Ad Agencies and the Creation of Asian American Consumers (Duke, 2015), and Desi Land: Teen Culture, Class, and Success in Silicon Valley (Duke, 2008), she writes OpEds about Asian American racialization for major media outlets and is a 2017 Guggenheim Fellow. If elected AAAS Mid-West Representative, I would apply my 15+ years of institutional experience and social knowledge about the area to increase involvement of the region’s students, faculty, and programs. I served on the AAAS site committee for the Chicago 2008 conference and undertook extensive fundraising and planning for AAAS Evanston 2015 while also Director of Northwestern’s Asian American Studies Program. I welcome the opportunity to further mentorship for AAAS students, junior, and midlevel faculty, and increase AAAS’s public role in countering anti-Asian violence.