Dr. Wilton S. Dillon, anthropologist and educator, has served the Phelps Stokes Fund for more than 40 years.  From 1957-1963, he was executive secretary and director of research during the presidency of Frederick Douglass Patterson. He continued his association with the Fund as an advisor to the African Student Aid Fund and later as a Trustee.  He initiated the Aggrey Fellowship Program in honor of Dr. J.E.K. Aggrey through a partnership of the Fund with the Edward Hazen Foundation. He also revitalized the Fund's charter commitment to education of American Indians. He worked closely with Dr. Patterson in organizing civil rights meetings at the Fund's conference center in Capahosic, Virginia, the former home of Robert Russa Moton, successor to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee.

In 1961-62, he represented the Fund in West Africa while conducting research at the University of Ghana on "Higher Education and African Nationhood." His findings were reported in Vol. 1, No. 1 of the Journal of Modern African Studies. He organized the visit to Africa of PSF trustees in celebration of the Fund's 50th anniversary in 1961, during which he introduced the trustees to his infant son, Harris "Kojo" Dillon, born in Accra. Born in Yale, Oklahoma in 1923, Dillon studied at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, before being called to active duty in the infantry and U.S. Air Corps during World War II.  For three years he served as liaison with the Japanese press as a civilian on General MacArthur's Civil Information and Education Staff. His first assignment was as press officer for the U.S. Education Mission that included President Johnson of Fisk University.

His B.A. degree was awarded by the University of California, Berkeley, 1951, and his Ph.D. from Columbia University, 1961. He pursued post-graduate studies at the Institute of Ethnology, Museum of Man, Paris, and at the University of Leyden. He lectured on anthropology and sociology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Columbia University, Fordham University, and the New School University. In 1963, he headed the Africa Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences and expanded his duties to include science cooperation with academies in Latin America, Asia and Europe, building upon his Phelps-Stokes experience.

The Smithsonian Institution has been his institutional home since 1969 when he was appointed director of seminars and symposia and later as founding director of the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies. His writings include a book, "Gifts and Nations: The Obligation to Give, Receive and Repay."  That work was cited in his being awarded by the French government the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. As Senior Scholar Emeritus, he is now working on three manuscripts, including a history of Smithsonian experiments in integrating the sciences and humanities, and advising on an exhibition linking anthropology to human rights.