Jerry Dávila, an expert in Latin American history and a leader in global humanities, will become the next director of the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on August 16, 2026, pending Board of Trustees approval.
Dávila, who currently serves as Executive Director of the Illinois Global Institute, has been at Illinois since 2012. He holds the Jorge Paulo Lemann Chair in Brazilian History and leads the institute established in 2018 to coordinate international area studies centers and advance global research initiatives across campus. He succeeds Antoinette Burton, the long-serving, founding Director of HRI.
“Jerry Dávila is an outstanding researcher and visionary leader whose commitment to interdisciplinary humanities research and global engagement will inspire our community as he leads HRI into its next chapter,” said Susan Martinis, Senior Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation. “His experience building bridges across disciplines and cultures will continue HRI’s impressive momentum on campus and beyond.”
An accomplished scholar and prolific author, Dávila’s research focuses on the role of racial thought in public policy in Brazil and on the relationship between states and social movements in the twentieth century. He is the author or co-author of numerous influential books, including Diploma of Whiteness: Race and Social Policy in Brazil, 1917–1945; Hotel Trópico: Brazil and the Challenge of African Decolonization; Dictatorship in South America; and A History of World Societies. His work has earned major recognition, including a Latin American Studies Association Brazil Section Book Prize and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Fulbright programs.
Dávila joins HRI as conversations around topics such as geopolitics, AI, immigration, and equitable access to education and healthcare have only grown more complex.
“The challenges our society and world face call on the humanities to envision just and inclusive futures,” said Dávila. “I am honored to lead HRI and to support the extraordinary community of humanists, artists, and social scientists at Illinois whose work is at the forefront of our understanding of human experience and possibility.”
He has also held leadership roles in the field, including service as President of the Conference on Latin American History, the affiliated society of the American Historical Association dedicated to the field of Latin American History. With the University of Illinois System, he has been at the forefront of the Brasillinois initiative, which has expanded research collaboration and scholarly exchange across disciplines with institutions in Brazil.
The Humanities Research Institute was founded as the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities in 1997 in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and became a campuswide institute in 2020. It fosters interdisciplinary study in the humanities, arts, and social sciences and supports programming such as fellowships and public humanities initiatives like the Odyssey Project, and the Mellon-funded Humanities Without Walls consortium.
“Under Antoinette’s leadership, HRI’s profile has grown exponentially,” said Martinis. “I look forward to working with Jerry and with scholars across the university to continue that trajectory.”