Elman was an Inaugural Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society, and also was its President, from 1999-2000. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the New Bulgarian University, and was the 2007 recipient of the David E. Rumelhart Prize for Theoretical Contributions to Cognitive Science. He was founding Co-Director of the Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind at UC San Diego, and holds the Chancellor's Associates Endowed Chair. He was Dean of Social Sciences at UCSD from 2008 until June 2014. Elman was also a founding co-director of the UCSD Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute, announced March 1, 2018.