Belvidere native Jeanne Gang to receive Order of Lincoln award

CHICAGO (WTVO) – A Belvidere native is one of six Illinoisans who will receive the state’s highest honor for professional achievement and public service this year.

Architect Jeannie Gang will receive an Order of Lincoln award on May 3, 2025, during the 61st Annual Convocation at Krannert Center for the Arts on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

A 1982 graduate of Belvidere High School, Gang is nown for a distinctive design approach that expands beyond architecture’s conventional boundaries. Her diverse portfolio across the Americas and Europe includes the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation at the American Museum of Natural History; a new United States Embassy in Brazil; and an expansion of the Clinton Presidential Center. She also designed the Beloit College Powerhouse in Beloit.

A MacArthur Fellow and a Professor in Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gang has been named one of TIME Magazine’s most influential people in the world.

“With world-renowned achievements in athletics, literature, architecture, education, journalism and history, the 2025 class of Lincoln Laureates embody the very best that Illinois has to offer,” Gov. JB Pritzker said in a news release. “I am proud to uplift their incredible contributions and to award these talented men and women our state’s highest honor.” 

The other five Lincoln Laureates are Bonnie Blair, the first American woman to win five gold medals at the Olympic Winter Games; Sandra Cisneros, a poet, short story writer, novelist; Janice K. Jackson, CEO of Hope Chicago and former CEO of Chicago Public Schools (CPS); Carol Marin, a journalist and Emmy Award-winning reporter who’s worked for CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” and the “Evening News with Dan Rather;” and Julieanna L. Richardson, founder and president of The HistoryMakers, a Chicago-based nonprofit, that features a digital archival collection of African-American oral histories.

The May 3 ceremony is free and open to the public and will be livestreamed on Facebook and YouTube. A ticketed reception and dinner will immediately follow the ceremony, and tickets must be purchased in advance by April 1.