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Department of Medicine

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Paula Allen-Meares, PhD

Chancellor Emerita, University of Illinois Chicago
Academic, researcher, social work, health disparities

Paula Allen-Meares, PhD

The Department of Medicine Inclusion Council honors and celebrates the accomplishments of Paula Allen-Meares, PhD. Dr. Allen-Meares may be best known for her tenure as Chancellor of the University of Illinois Chicago from 2009 – 2015 where she served as the first African American Chancellor in the 155 years of the University of Illinois. During her Chancellorship at UIC, Dr. Allen-Meares hosted and organized the Meeting of the Nobel Peace Laureates on the UIC campus. She also founded the Institute of Minority Health Research Center at UIC.

A native of Buffalo, NY, Dr. Allen-Meares earned her bachelor’s degree at the State University of New York at Buffalo and master’s and PhD degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Dr. Paula Allen-Meares is an international expert on education, mental health, and health disparities in under-resourced communities that are ethnically and racially diverse. She served as Chancellor of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), the largest public research university in Chicago, with over 30,000 students; in 2010, she was also appointed Vice President of the University of Illinois. As Chancellor, Dr. Allen-Meares led “Brilliant Futures: The Campaign for the University of Illinois at Chicago” on the heels of the Great Recession to raise $676 million.

In collaboration with the UIC Health leadership, she built the Miles Square facility on Roosevelt Road.
In collaboration with the UIC Health leadership, she built the Miles Square facility on Roosevelt Road.

While Chancellor, she worked to transform the campus into a model for how urban research universities should champion and effectuate sustainable public policy and translate research, discoveries, and innovations that enhance quality of life at the local, national, and global levels. In doing so, she has redefined for future generations the role of land-grant colleges and universities. The UIC six-year graduation rate also improved under her tenure.

Dr. Allen-Meares is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). She is the only elected member of NAM in the UIC College of Medicine.

Two major publications resulted from her work on NAM committees: Retooling for an Aging America; Building the Healthcare Workforce and Opportunities for Improving Programs and Services for Children with Disabilities. She has also been invited to participate in White House conferences/calls regarding student success and affordability in higher education, opioid use, budget, and mental health.

She received an award from the Counsul General of El Salvador for Support of International Academic Exchanges.
She received an award from the Counsul General of El Salvador for Support of International Academic Exchanges.

At the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Dr. Allen-Meares chaired the University Health Sciences Council and was a founding Dean of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, the National Center for Institutional Diversity, and the U-M Detroit Center.

She was principal investigator (PI) of the Global Program on Youth, supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation; co-PI of the National Institute of Mental Health’s Research Center on Poverty, Risk, and Mental Health; co-PI on an R01 of the National Institute of Mental Health’s Pathways for Youth, Risk, and Resilience; and PI of the Skillman Good Neighborhoods grant. She is also Dean and Professor Emerita and the Norma Radin Collegiate Professor at U-M. She is also a University of Michigan faculty scholar.

She created a campus/central focus on formalizing STEM at the undergraduate level, as PI of the Biomedical Bridges to Baccalaureate and the Health Sciences Exchange grants.
She created a campus/central focus on formalizing STEM at the undergraduate level, as PI of the Biomedical Bridges to Baccalaureate and the Health Sciences Exchange grants.

During her career at UIC, Dr. Allen-Meares has also served as PI of the NIH Bridges to Baccalaureate grant and the Health Sciences Learning Exchange grant. Currently, she is Co-PI of the Center grant on Health Equity Research, and she is PI of CDC and HHS grants that focus on health literacy.

Currently, Dr. Allen-Meares is John Corbally Presidential Professor Emerita, Professor of Medicine, and the Executive Director of the Office of Health Literacy for the College of Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago. She is working on two grants for which she serves as Co-PI: The HHS grant “Advancing Health Literacy to Enhance Equitable Community Responses to COVID-19” in Rockford, IL and the CDC grant “Suburban Cook County COVID-19 Health Equity Initiative”. Her priorities include working on issues related to education and health disparities.