Allen is one of several successful black professionals whose experiences and perspectives have been profiled in books including Laurel Holliday's Children of the Dream (2000), Ellis Cose's The Rage of a Privileged Class (1994), George Yancy's African American Philosophers: 17 Conversations (1998,) and Elwood Watson: Outsiders Within (2008).
In 2010 President Barack Obama appointed Allen to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.