Leading Caribbean academic leader Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, who currently serves as Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies (UWI), has earned a new high-profile international appointment: he will hold the title of Distinguished Scholar at New York University (NYU) for the 2026–2027 academic year.
During his tenure in this distinguished role, Beckles will be hosted by NYU’s Centre for the Study of Africa and the African Diaspora, an institution globally recognized for its cutting-edge research on African and diaspora studies, which is currently headed by prominent scholar Professor Michael Gomez.
In an official statement released by UWI following the announcement of the appointment, Beckles expressed his enthusiasm for the new opportunity, framing it as a rare chance to reestablish his academic connection to NYU while collaborating directly with leading researchers focused on advancing the study of African history.
“This appointment is a deeply valued recognition of scholarly fellowship, particularly because this centre has built its global reputation on exceptional, groundbreaking research,” Beckles explained in his remarks. He recalled that his last academic affiliation with NYU dates back to 1994, when he worked as a visiting scholar at the university’s Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies — a position he was succeeded in by the iconic Barbadian poet and scholar Professor Kamau Brathwaite. “Returning to NYU after 32 years, this time working alongside some of the world’s leading scholars of African history, will be an incredibly special experience,” he added.
As a key public engagement component of his distinguished scholar appointment, Beckles will deliver a high-profile public lecture on 13 October 2026, tackling an under-explored critical topic in global economic and slavery studies: the underrecognized economic contributions of enslaved Black women to the transatlantic slavery system.
The lecture, carrying the formal title “The Economics of Wealth Creation: Why Enslaved Black Women Were the Financial Core of the Slavery Business Model”, is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. local time at Hemmerdinger Hall, located in NYU’s Silver Centre in downtown Manhattan.
This latest appointment is only one entry in a long line of international academic honours that Beckles has accumulated over his decades-long career. In 2022, he was named Honorary International Historian of the Year by the Association of American Historians, and he has previously held the prestigious title of Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor-at-Large at Cornell University, another top U.S. research institution.
UWI’s official statement emphasized that this new recognition not only spotlights Beckles’ decades of impactful scholarship and his far-reaching academic leadership on the global stage, but also strengthens the institution’s ongoing commitment to expanding cross-border academic collaboration and open scholarly dialogue between global research communities.