Walter R. Allen is the Allan Murray Cartter Professor of Higher Education and a Distinguished Professor of Education, Sociology, and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He earned a B.A. in Sociology from Beloit College in 1971, an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Chicago in 1973, a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago in 1975, and completed postdoctoral study in Psycho-Social Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1979. His professional career includes service as instructor to assistant professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill from 1974 to 1979, assistant to full professor at the University of Michigan from 1979 to 1991, and professor of sociology at UCLA since 1988, with promotions to distinguished professor in sociology in 2008, African American Studies in 2015, and holder of the Cartter Chair since 2004. He has held visiting professorships at the University of Zimbabwe, Duke University, Howard University, St. Petersburg State University, and Universidad de Cartagena.

Allen's research interests include academic experiences, choices, and college attainment; the status of Black males in American society; social inequality; comparative race, ethnicity, and inequality; diversity in higher education; and family studies. He directs UCLA’s Capacity Building Center and founded the Choices Project in 1998. Key publications encompass books such as College in Black and White: African American Students in Predominantly White and Historically Black Public Universities (1991, edited with Edgar G. Epps and Nesha Z. Haniff), The Color Line and the Quality of Life in America (1989, with Reynolds Farley), and Beginnings: The Social and Affective Development of Black Children (1985, edited with Margaret B. Spencer and Geraldine K. Brookins), as well as articles including “From Bakke to Fisher: African American students in US higher education over forty years” (2018, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences) and “‘You make me wanna holler and throw up both my hands!’: campus culture, Black misandric microaggressions and racial battle fatigue” (2016). He has received the National Academy of Education membership (2018), AERA Scholars of Color Distinguished Career Contribution Award (2016), Howard Bowen Distinguished Career Award (2011), DuBois-Johnson-Frazier Award (2002), and Distinguished Career Award from the Association of Black Sociologists (1995). Allen provided expert testimony in affirmative action cases including Grutter v. Bollinger, U.S. v. Fordice, and Castenada v. UC Board of Regents, and served as president of the Association of Black Sociologists (1992-1993).

Professional Email: wallen@ucla.edu