Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Nominated as Finalist for 2015 Pulitzer Prize in History; Wins Bancroft Prize
Sven Beckert’s book, Empire of Cotton: A Global History (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), was nominated as a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in History. The committee called it “a work of staggering scholarship arguing that slavery was crucial to the dynamism of the industrial revolution.”
Beckert’s book was also awarded a 2015 Bancroft Prize. The Bancroft Prizes are awarded annually by the trustees of Columbia University. Winners are judged in terms of the scope, significance, depth of research, and richness of interpretation they present in the areas of American history and diplomacy.
Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Elected as Member of the National Academy of Sciences
Robert H. Bates was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of his “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.” Membership in the National Academy of Sciences is a widely accepted mark of excellence in science and is considered one of the highest honors that a scientist can receive.
Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Wins Book Award
Jocelyn Viterna’s book, Women in War: The Micro-Processes of Mobilization in El Salvador (Oxford University Press, 2013), is the winner of the Mirra Komarovksy Book Award for 2015. Viterna received the award at the Eastern Sociological Society Meeting in February 2015. Women in War is also the recipient of the Distinguished Book Award from the Sex and Gender Section of the American Sociological Association, the Political Sociology Book Award, and an honorable mention for the Distinguished Book Award for the section on the Sociology of Development.
Four WCFIA Affiliates Named Inaugural 2015 Andrew Carnegie Fellows
Faculty Associates David Bloom (Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) and Laurence Ralph (Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies and Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University); former Graduate Student Associate and Harvard Academy Scholar Fotini Christia (Associate Professor of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology); and former Graduate Student Associate Mala Htun (Associate Professor of Political Science, University of New Mexico) were named 2015 Andrew Carnegie Fellows by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Thirty-two Andrew Carnegie Fellows were named as the inaugural class of a major annual fellowship program that will provide support for scholars in the social sciences and humanities. The Fellows are an exceptional group of established and emerging scholars, journalists, and authors whose work distills knowledge, enriches our culture, and equips leaders in the realms of science, law, business, public policy, and the arts. They will receive awards of up to $200,000 each, which will enable them to take sabbaticals in order to devote time to their research and writing.
Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Receives Economics Professorship
Pol Antràs has recently been named the recipient of an endowed chair, the Robert G. Ory Family Professorship of Economics in the Harvard University Department of Economics. The Ory Family Professorship of Economics recognizes an outstanding scholar in economics whose research is related to enterprise creation.
Antràs is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), where he served as director of the International Trade and Organization (ITO) Working Group. He is also a research affiliate at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and a member of CESifo’s Research Network. Antràs’s teaching and research fields are international economics, macroeconomics, and applied theory.
Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Awarded Residential Fellowship
Mary D. Lewis has been awarded a Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowship for Recently Tenured Scholars from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). The fellowship will be in residence at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study for the 2015–2016 academic year. Providing fellowships for scholars in the humanities and related social sciences has been one of the signal activities of ACLS.
Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Receives Dissertation Award
Joshua D. Kertzer received the CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award from the Council of Graduate Schools for the best dissertation in the social sciences in the past two years. Kertzer earned his PhD in political science from Ohio State University and is an assistant professor of government at Harvard University. His research specializes in the intersection of international security, foreign policy, political psychology, and quantitative and experimental methods.
Undergraduate Associate Awarded Scholarship
Daniel Barcia ’15 received a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. Barcia is the founder and former editor in chief of the Harvard College Human Rights Review, which serves as a forum for discussing human rights violations. Next year he will pursue an MPhil in International Relations and Politics at University of Cambridge.
Gates Cambridge Scholarships are awarded to outstanding applicants from countries outside the United Kingdom to pursue a full-time postgraduate degree in any subject available at the University of Cambridge. The program aims to build a global network of future leaders committed to improving the lives of others.