Of Note

Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Receives Gold Medal of Honor

Herbert C. Kelman, the Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics, Emeritus, received the Gold Medal of Honor from the Federal Capital of Vienna, “in recognition of his significant achievements.” The medal was presented to him at a ceremony in Vienna’s City Hall on December 12, 2012. Professor Kelman was born in Vienna in 1927, escaped Nazi persecution with his family in 1939, and settled in the United States in 1940.

Former Weatherhead Center Academy Scholar is Awarded Fairbank Prize

Jun Uchida, assistant professor of history at Stanford University and author of Brokers of Empire: Japanese Settler Colonialism in Korea, 1876–1945, was awarded the John K. Fairbank Prize by the American Historical Association. Established by a gift to the Association from the friends of John K. Fairbank, the prominent Harvard historian of China and East Asia and president of the Association in 1968, the Fairbank Prize is awarded for the best work on the history of China proper, Vietnam, Chinese Central Asia, Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, or Japan since the year 1800. The prize was originally offered from 1969 with a $500 award, but in 1985 it became an annual prize with a cash award of $1,000.

Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Presents Keynote Address

Michael Herzfeld’s film “Roman Restaurant Rhythms” (Berkeley Media, 2011) was screened at the Sardinia International Ethnographic Film Festival in Nuoro, Sardinia, Italy. Herzfeld then presented a keynote address at a conference in Nicosia, Cyprus, on “The Rights to the City, The Right to the State.”

Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Named Global Thinker

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Calestous Juma has been named one of Lo Spazio della Politica’s (LSDP) 100 Global Thinkers of 2012. The Italian publication’s list recognizes political leaders, business people, scientists, academics, and intellectuals from around the globe. Juma, professor of the practice of international development, is director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project at HKS and runs Harvard’s Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Agricultural Innovation in Africa Project. He is currently working on books tackling engineering for development and resistance to new technologies. LSDP selected Juma, “Because his writings on innovation in Africa enhance the understanding of the region which is essential for the economic and political growth of this decade.”

Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Receives Legion of Honor and the Medal of the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle

Calling Indian-American Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen the “greatest humanist” and a “great thinker,” French President Francois Hollande bestowed his country’s highest decoration on the celebrated economist for his contributions to economics and philosophy. Conferring the Commandeur de la Legion d’Honneur (Legion of Honor) after delivering the Madhavrao Scindia Memorial Lecture, Hollande lavished praise on Sen and quoted extensively from his works that speak about problems faced by the poorest sectors of society.

Sen was also recently honored by the Government of Mexico with the Medal of the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle. Consul General Daniel Hernández Joseph presented the medal to Professor Sen in Boston on November 29, 2012, for his contributions on economics, welfare, and social justice in economic policy-making. The Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle is Mexico’s highest decoration awarded to foreign nationals whose work has benefited Mexico and its people.

Former Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Appointed President of New America Foundation

The New America Foundation’s Board of Directors announced the appointment of Anne-Marie Slaughter as the Foundation’s next president, effective September 1, 2013. Dr. Slaughter, a Princeton professor, former dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and the former director of policy planning at the US State Department, will succeed Steve Coll, who stepped down on March 31, 2013, after five years leading the nonpartisan public policy think tank.

Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Joins World News Site as Senior Foreign Affairs Columnist

The New America Foundation’s Board of Directors announced today the appointment of Harvard professor and former American diplomat Nicholas Burns will become GlobalPost.com’s Senior Foreign Affairs Columnist. Burns, who is the Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations at Harvard Kennedy School, will write columns for GlobalPost and represent the site as an expert on foreign affairs issues.