Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program Recognizes 33 Scholars for Significant Work in Social Sciences and Humanities

NEW YORK, April 19, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Continuing its longstanding investment in the social sciences and humanities, Carnegie Corporation of New York announced 33 winners of the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program today with awards from the philanthropic foundation totaling $6.6 million.

The fellows will provide new perspectives on topics such as firearms and justifiable homicide, economic and demographic shifts in rural America, the abolition of prisons, the process for selecting judges, the impact of economic growth on climate change, nuclear technology developed for peaceful purposes used to create weapons, the resettlement of refugees and asylum seekers, the adaption of Islam in Western societies, the future of the Middle East, and famine in the 20^th century.

The fellows were selected based on the originality, promise, and potential impact of their proposals. Each will receive up to $200,000 toward the funding of one to two years of scholarly research and writing aimed at addressing some of the world's most urgent challenges to U.S. democracy and international order.

The program supports both established and emerging scholars, journalists, and authors whose work distills knowledge, enriches our culture, and equips leaders in the realms of education, law, technology, business, and public policy.

"Our founder, Andrew Carnegie, charged Carnegie Corporation with the task of creating, advancing, and diffusing knowledge in order to enlighten American society and strengthen our democracy. This outstanding new cohort of 33 Carnegie Fellows is a result of that mandate," said Vartan Gregorian, President of Carnegie Corporation of New York. "While there are many excellent fellowship and scholarly opportunities in our nation, what distinguishes the Carnegie Fellows is the broad range of their scholarship, as well as the program's thorough selection process. The nominators, evaluators, and jurors, all of whom are prominent scholars and academic leaders, gave their time and dedication to support this initiative and these exceptional fellows."

The nominating process entailed three levels of review. It began with the Corporation seeking recommendations from more than 600 leaders representing a range of universities, think tanks, publishers, and nonprofit organizations nationwide. These leaders nominated some 200 candidates, whose proposals were evaluated by an anonymous team of prominent scholars, educators, and intellectuals. The final selections were made by a distinguished panel of 16 jurors, including heads of the country's premier scholarly institutions and presidents of leading universities and foundations.

"We reviewed proposals from the nation's preeminent scholars and thinkers, as well as from the next generation of promising thinkers and writers. This year's fellows represent a remarkable range of institutions and organizations, and all share a determination to bring new insights to their fields of study," said Susan Hockfield, President Emerita of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who chaired the panel of jurors. "The large number of truly outstanding proposals makes the jury's task difficult, but it also renews our confidence that social science and humanistic perspectives will—and must—contribute to designing solutions to today's most complex challenges."

The Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program provides the most prestigious and most generous fellowships advancing research in the social sciences and humanities. The anticipated result of each fellowship is the publication of a book or major study.

2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellows

Séverine Autesserre, Barnard College, Columbia University
Deborah Balk, Baruch College, The City University of New York
Gabriella Blum, Harvard University
John R. Bowen, Washington University in St. Louis
Curtis A. Bradley, Duke University
Kate Brown, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Margaret Burnham, Northeastern University
Mark Danner, University of California, Berkeley
Lawrence Douglas, Amherst College 
Joshua A. Dubler, University of Rochester
M. Taylor Fravel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Matthew Fuhrmann, Texas A&M University
María Cristina García, Cornell University
Daniel K. Gardner, Smith College
Charles G. Geyh, Indiana University
Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, University of Michigan
Jens Hainmueller, Stanford University
C. Kirabo Jackson, Northwestern University
Kenneth Johnson, University of New Hampshire
Marwan M. Kraidy, University of Pennsylvania
Marc Lynch, George Washington University
Mark Fathi Massoud, University of California, Santa Cruz
Maribel Morey, Clemson University
Christopher M. Nichols, Oregon State University
William Nordhaus, Yale University 
Nathaniel Persily, Stanford University
Beryl Satter, Rutgers University-Newark
Harel Shapira, The University of Texas at Austin
Landry Signé, University of Alaska
Katharine R.E. Sims, Amherst College
Jenny Leigh Smith, Georgia Institute of Technology
Vesla M. Weaver, Yale University
Thomas G. Weiss, The City University of New York, The Graduate Center

Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program Jurors

Susan Hockfield, Chair, Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program Jurors; President Emerita, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; President-elect, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Ralph Cicerone, President, National Academy of Sciences
Jared Cohon, President Emeritus, Carnegie Mellon University 
Mary Sue Coleman, President Emerita, University of Michigan; President-elect, Association of American Universities
John J. DeGioia, President, Georgetown University
Robbert Dijkgraaf, Director and Leon Levy Professor, Institute for Advanced Study
Jonathan Fanton, President, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Amy Gutmann, President, University of Pennsylvania
Rush Holt, CEO, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Alberto Ibargüen, President and CEO, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Ira Katznelson, President, Social Science Research Council
Arthur Levine, President, The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
Earl Lewis, President, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Don Randel, Chair of the Board, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Louise Richardson, Vice-Chancellor, University of Oxford
Pauline Yu, President, American Council of Learned Societies

Throughout its more than 100-year history, Carnegie Corporation of New York has supported many individual scholars and their research. In the 1930s, Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma had a significant impact on race relations and was influential in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Corporation funded the early works of major scholars such as Robert Caro, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Power Broker, as well as Martin Feldstein, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

More recently, between 2000 and 2009, the Corporation supported the Carnegie Scholars program, which awarded 168 fellowships to scholars across a broad range of disciplines, including 117 scholars with expertise on the challenges facing Islam and the Muslim world. Many of these scholars are now among the top experts in their fields.

Learn more about the Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program and the work of the 2016 class, and follow news about the fellows at #CarnegieFellows.         

About Carnegie Corporation of New York
Carnegie Corporation of New York was established in 1911 by Andrew Carnegie to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding. In keeping with this mandate, the Corporation's work focuses on the issues that Andrew Carnegie considered of paramount importance: international peace, the advancement of education and knowledge, and the strength of our democracy.

For Further Information: 
Celeste Ford | Manager of Media Relations
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SOURCE Carnegie Corporation of New York