Jason De León, director of UCLA’s Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and professor of anthropology and Chicana/o and Central American Studies at UCLA, will receive the 2025 American Anthropological Association’s President’s Award, presented annually to honor those making significant contributions in advancing the field of anthropology.

“De León receives this award for his innovative scholarship and public engagement,” said the association in a statement. “As executive director of the Undocumented Migration Project, he combines research, arts and education to illuminate the human realities of global migration.”

The association says De León’s book, “Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling,” further solidified his reputation as a groundbreaking anthropologist and influential public thinker. De León is also the author of “The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Sonoran Desert Migrant Trail.”

In 2017, De León was named a MacArthur Genius fellow for his efforts to combine ethnographic, forensic and archaeological evidence to bring to light the human consequences of immigration policy in the U.S.–Mexico border.

De León will join 15 other 2025 award recipients to be honored at the American Anthropological Association’s annual meeting, which will take place Nov. 19–23 in New Orleans. Honorees will also be featured in the November/December issue of Anthropology News.

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This fall, De León will also receive the 2025 Derrick Bell Award presented by the Western Center on Law and Poverty at its annual Garden Party, an annual fundraising event that honors leaders and advocates working to dismantle harmful systems and drive meaningful change across California and the nation.

Each year, the Derrick Bell Award honors those leading the fight against poverty and inequality. The award pays tribute to Bell — a groundbreaking civil rights scholar who revealed how racial bias is embedded in our laws and society — by recognizing today’s social justice leaders who carry that mission forward.

De León will receive the award on Oct. 22, 2025, at the Ebell of Los Angeles, alongside two other honorees.