Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow was recently named a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS), one of the nation’s oldest learned societies. Minow was one of five distinguished scholars elected as fellows of the Academy in 2017.
Minow, an expert in human rights and advocacy for members of racial and religious minorities and for women, children, and persons with disabilities, was recognized for her contributions to society through research and public service. The Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Law at Harvard, Minow has written extensively about privatization, military justice, and ethnic and religious conflict.
There are 111 Fellows of the Academy in total, most of them university-based scholars responsible for research that has changed our understanding of human behavior and the world in which we live; a small number of AAPSS Fellows are public servants, who have used research and evidence in institutions of government to improve the common good.
In addition to Minow, the 2017 Fellows of the Academy are:
Lawrence Bobo, whose research has quantified, qualified, and illuminated understandings about social inequality, politics, racism and attitudes about race in America. He is the W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University, where he holds appointments in the Department of Sociology and the Department of African and African American Studies.
Margaret Levi, a political scientist who has made foundational contributions in comparative politics, the ways in which the quality of government can be improved, and political economies that can sustain workers. She is the Sara Miller McCune Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford, where she is also a professor of political science.
Timothy Smeeding, a world leader in the analysis of poverty, economic and intergenerational mobility, inequality, and consumption and wealth. Smeeding was founding director of the Luxembourg Income Study (1983), and is the Lee Rainwater Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs and Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he led the Institute for Research on Poverty from 2008 to 2014.
Claude Steele, who has transformed understandings of the psychological experiences of individuals, particularly how individuals experience and respond to threat. He has analyzed threats to self-image, and how self-affirmation contributes to self-regulation, focusing on the academic under-achievement of minority students, and the role of alcohol and drug use in self-regulation and social behavior. He is a professor in the Department of Psychology and the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley.
“Each year we welcome distinguished Fellows to the Academy, and this year is no different,” said Kenneth Prewitt, Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs at Columbia University and President of the AAPSS. “Each of these scholars reminds us that the results of rigorous and compelling research serve the common good when the research influences public policymaking. We are honored that they have joined the select group of Fellows of the Academy.”
Bobo, Levi, Minow, Smeeding, and Steele will officially join the Academy on the evening of May 18, 2017, in a ceremony in Washington, DC. Visit the AAPSS website for a complete list of fellows.