Ernest Wilson

Ernest James Wilson was born in Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, DC. He grew up in segregated Washington and was one of the first to attend an integrated middle school. He later attended high school at the Supreme Court Page School and college at Harvard before receiving his Ph.D. from Berkeley. He began his academic career at the University of Pennsylvania before moving to the University of Michigan, where he was director of the Center for Research on Economic Development and an associate research scientist at the Institute for Public Policy Studies.

In 1992, he joined the University of Maryland, College Park, where he was a professor and senior research scholar, holding a joint appointment in the Department of Government and Politics and in the Department of African-American Studies. He also was director of the Center for International Development and Conflict Management at the university.

From 1993 to 1994, he was director of international programs and resources for the White House National Security Council and later served as director of the Policy and Planning Unit for the U.S. Information Agency. Nominated by President Bill Clinton, Wilson served on the board of directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from 2000 to 2010 and was reappointed to the CPB board by President George W. Bush in 2004.

Wilson was the Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California from 2007 to 2017 and later went on to found the Center for Third Space Thinking, which is devoted to research, teaching, and executive education.