Angela Onwuachi-Willig '94

Grinnell, IA
Grinnell Major: American Studies (Concentration in African American Studies)
President of Alumni Council
Executive Committee
angela-onwuachi@uiowa.edu

In 1990, Grinnell alumna Jodi Hester, then an admissions dean, convinced Angela Onwuachi-Willig to attend Grinnell College with two selling points: (1) that students at Grinnell College valued and practiced tolerance and (2) that Grinnell College was a college for people “who are just a bit strange.” During her time at Grinnell, Angela served as the SGA President during her junior year; a member of the Multiethnic Coalition; and a Student Advisor, among many other things. Angela met her husband, Jacob, at Grinnell College. Jacob is now a tenured professor in the physics department at the College, and Angela, Jacob, and their three kids presently live in Grinnell.

Angela is currently the Chancellor's Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. A graduate of Grinnell College and the University of Michigan Law School, she clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Solomon Oliver and U.S. Circuit Court Judge Karen Nelson Moore. She is the author of the new book, According to Our Hearts: Rhinelander v. Rhinelander and the Law of the Multiracial Family (Yale University Press 2013). She is a past recipient of the Derrick A. Bell, Jr. Award, is a current American Law Institute member, has been an Iowa Supreme Court finalist, and has been placed on the National Law Journal’s “Minority 40 under 40” list.