Congratulations to Faculty Associate Gita Gopinath, John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and of Economics at Harvard University, who was appointed chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Gopinath is the first woman to hold the position, and will take a two-year leave from Harvard in January 2019 to serve her appointment. At the IMF, “Gopinath will lead a team of more than 1,000 researchers while also serving as the most influential policy adviser to the managing director.” 

Faculty Associate Rohini Pande, Rafik Hariri Professor of International Political Economy at the Harvard Kennedy School, is the recipient of the 2018 Carolyn Shaw Bell Award. The American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession has given out the award every year since 1998 to honor an "individual who has furthered the status of women in the economics profession through example, achievements, increasing our understanding of how women can advance in the economics profession or mentoring others." See the full announcement by the AEA for more details. 

The Harvard Global Institute awarded grants to seven projects this year that feature interdisciplinary, cross-collaborative research, and seven Faculty Associates are among the recipients: Rema Hanna will study improving access to state goods and services in India; Arthur Kleinman will develop a program to improve elderly care in China; Chi-Man "Winnie" Yip et al. will work to help eliminate malaria in China; and Meg Rithmire, Timothy Colton, Tarek Masoud, and Odd Arne Westad will study global neighborhoods in the context of a multipolar international power system. Congratulations to all the recipients! 

Congratulations to Faculty Associate Lawrence Bobo, W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences and professor of African and African American studies, on being appointed dean of social science at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. Bobo, who studies race, ethnicity, politics, and social inequality, helped previous dean of social science Claudine Gay found the FAS Inequality in America Initiative last year. For more details on Bobo's many contributions, see article in the Harvard Gazette.  

Two 2017–2018 Academy Scholars have won awards from the American Political Science Association. David Szakonyi's dissertation Renting Elected Office: Why Businesspeople Become Politicians in Russia has received the American Political Science Association’s 2018 Gabriel A. Almond Award for Best Dissertation in Comparative Politics. Mariano Sánchez-Talanquer's dissertation States Divided: History, Conflict, and State Formation in Mexico and Colombia has received the American Political Science Association’s 2018 William Anderson Award for the best dissertation in the general field of federalism or intergovernmental relations, state and local politics. Congratulations to both!

Mireille Paquet, 2017–2018 William Lyon Mackenzie King Postdoctoral Fellow with the Canada Program, won the 2018 CPSA Francophone Award for her book, La fédéralisation de l'immigration au Canada (Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 2016). In her book, Paquet analyzes immigration policy across ten Canadian provinces, and according to the CPSA jury report, "[i]t is a very important contribution to Canadian policy and comparative politics but also to public policy."

Recent WCFIA Undergraduate Associate Puanani Brown won Harvard's 2018 Senior Thesis Prize in Ethnicity, Migration, Rights for her thesis on Food Sovereignty and Traditional Hawaiian Agriculture in the Context of Global Food Systems. Kamran Jamil, also a recent Undergraduate Associate, won the honorable mention for his thesis on Development, Disease, and Democracy: Understanding the Roots of Poor Social Development in Sindh, Pakistan and Outlining the Possibilities for Reform. 

Advisory Committee Member Michael Ignatieff, president and rector of Central European University in Budapest, won the eighth annual Zócalo Book Prize for his 2017 book, The Ordinary Virtues: Moral Order in a Divided World. The prize is awarded to a nonfiction book that "most enhances our understanding of community, human connectedness, and social cohesion." Ignatieff will deliver a lecture and accept the prize, which includes $5,000, on May 22 in Los Angeles, California. 

Warm congratulations to our three Faculty Associates elected as 2018 Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: Jeffry Frieden, Stanfield Professor of International Peace, Harvard University; Pippa Norris, Paul F. McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics, Harvard Kennedy School; and Gita Gopinath, John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and of Economics, Harvard University. These faculty members join a class of 177 Fellows across a wide range of disciplines awarded for their exceptional ability in sharing knowledge and addressing challenges facing the world. 

Congratulations to Faculty Associate Peter A. Hall, Krupp Foundation Professor of European Studies at Harvard University, on winning a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship in political science. The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation awarded the fellowship to 173 scholars, artists, and scientists, chosen from almost 3,000 applicants. Awards are given on the basis of "prior achievement and exceptional promise." This is the Foundation's ninety-fourth competition.  

Congratulations to Graduate Student Associate Justin Stern, who was selected as one of the 2018 Harvard Horizons Scholars! Every year, eight creative and innovative PhD candidates are chosen to receive "in-depth, personalized mentoring and coaching designed to enhance their presentation skills." On Wednesday, April 11, each scholar will present their research in Sanders Theatre in a free and open-to-the-public forum. Stern's talk is titled, "Global Outsourcing, Local Transformations: Business Process Outsourcing and Urban Restructuring in the Philippines." For more information on the... Read more about GSA Justin Stern Selected As Harvard Horizon Scholar

Faculty Associate Serhii Plokhii is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History and director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University. He is one of five winners of the 2018 Shevchenko National Prize for his 2015 book, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine. The prize is named after poet and artist Taras Shevchenko and is Ukraine’s highest state award—and thus one of the most prestigious distinctions a work of writing or art can receive in Ukraine. 

Kudos to Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Sheila Jasanoff, Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Harvard Kennedy School, on receiving a 2017 Reimar Lüst Award. Jasanoff, who has pioneered international science and technology studies, is one of two humanities scholars to win the award. The award, granted by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, is given to humanities scholars who have "shaped academic and cultural relations between Germany and their own countries." 

Congratulations to Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Emmanuel Akyeampong! The Harvard Center for African Studies Oppenheimer Faculty Director and professor of history and of African and African American studies was conferred an honorary doctorate degree at the University of Ghana during their seventieth-anniversary celebrations. The award came at the end of the university's 2018 Aggrey-Fraser-Guggisberg Memorial Lectures, where the theme was “Nkrumah and the Making of the Ghanaian Nation-State.” 

Faculty Associate Eve Blau, adjunct professor of the history of urban form at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, was one of four people named a 2018 Society of Architectural Historian Fellow. SAH Fellows are "individuals who have distinguished themselves by a lifetime of significant contributions to the field of architectural history, which may include scholarship, service to SAH or stewardship of the built environment." Blau's research interests include modern architecture and urbanism; post-industrial and post-socialist urban transitions; Central and Eastern Europe; and urban... Read more about Faculty Associate Eve Blau Named 2018 SAH Fellow