Charmaine A. Nelson Named Fellow in the Royal Society of Canada

Charmaine A. Nelson, provost professor of art history and director of the Slavery North Initiative, has been selected as a fellow by the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), which recognizes Canada’s leading intellectuals, scholars, researchers and artists.

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Fellows are distinguished Canadians from all branches of learning who have made remarkable contributions in the arts, the humanities and the sciences, as well as in Canadian public life.

Nelson will be inducted into the RSC at its annual induction ceremony in November in Calgary, Alberta, joining the current 2,558 active fellows, all of whom are elected after rigorous evaluation and review of their accomplishments.

In addition to her work at UMass Amherst, Nelson is also a prominent scholar, art historian, educator, author and the first-ever Black professor of art history in Canada. Nelson’s groundbreaking research explores representations of and production by enslaved Africans within Transatlantic Slavery in Canada, the Caribbean, and the USA.

An award-winning scholar, she has published seven books, and delivered more than 300 talks and 240 interviews in Europe, the Caribbean and North America. She is also currently a member of the American Antiquarian Society (AAS), a Worcester-based national research library of American history and culture through 1876 that has been sharing American stories for more than 200 years.