William Julius Wilson, Ph.D. (’66) received the 1998 National Medal of Science, the highest scientific honor in the United States.Wilson was a behavioral and social scientists and received the medal  “for his innovative approach to studying urban poverty, his dedication to the proposition that rigorous social science change will improve his fellow American’s lives, and his advocacy of policies which reflect more accurately what we have learned from research and which therefore take a broader point of view with respect to the interactions of race, class, and location.”

Wilson received the award at a White House ceremony April 27, 1999.