La Follette Professor Emeritus Tim Smeeding was one of just seven University of Wisconsin–Madison scholars announced this March as a prestigious fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Smeeding, the Lee Rainwater Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Public Affairs and Economics, was among 471 scientists, engineers and innovators across two dozen disciplines to receive the honor in the 2024 class elected by The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), one of the world’s largest general scientific societies and publisher of the Science family of journals. Recognition as an AAAS Fellow is a prestigious distinction within the scientific community and a lifetime honor.
The AAAS elected Smeeding as a fellow for his lifetime contributions to the study of poverty and social welfare programs. These contributions included his leadership in co-founding the Luxembourg Income Study in 1983. This worldwide database was established to standardize the study of income dynamics globally and remains the gold standard today for cross-national income research.
The award is also in recognition for his work on the National Academies of Science panel to reduce child poverty that advocated for a child allowance as an effective way to reduce child poverty. The panel’s findings led in part to President Biden’s refundable Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC).
Most recently, his 2024 publication with the National Academies of Science aims to harmonize the diverse and often-disparate data available for household income, consumption and wealth. His report calls for federal agencies to develop national data infrastructure to produce more accurate and consistent data and statistics, which are essential to advance research on economic wellbeing and to ensure that policies are well targeted.
“I am honored to be named as a fellow by the AAAS, the publisher of the most respected academic journal in the world,” Smeeding said. “They recognize only a few social scientists every year, which makes it all the more special to have my work acknowledged by the full scientific community.”
Smeeding was the only UW-Madison recipient in the 2024 class from the social sciences, and one of just nine new fellows in the category covering social, economic and political sciences.
AAAS first launched this lifetime recognition in 1874, about 25 years after the association was founded. AAAS members are nominated by the steering committees of the association’s 24 sections across scientific and engineering disciplines, by three current AAAS fellows, or by the CEO of AAAS. Fellows must have been continuous members of AAAS for four years by the end of the calendar year in which they are elected.
Smeeding and the other new fellows will be celebrated at a forum in Washington, D.C. on June 7, 2025. The 2024 class was also featured in the journal Science in March 2025.