Updates

Karen Bird, chair of the McMaster University Department of Political Science, has been nominated for a local YWCA Women of Distinction Award in Hamilton, Ontario.

Richard Sobel, a visiting scholar at the Buffett Center at Northwestern University, was named the winner of the 2017 George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language for his book Citizenship as Foundation of Rights: Meaning for America by the National Council of Teachers of English.

Scott Straus, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has won the 2018 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order for his book Making and Unmaking Nations: War, Leadership, and Genocide in Modern Africa given by the University of Louisville.

Christine Xydias, former assistant professor of political science at Clarkson University, has been granted tenure and promoted to associate professor of political science in the School of Arts & Sciences.

NAS Honors Solingen with Award

Etel Solingen, a scholar in the School of Social Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, has been honored by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) alongside her colleague Barbara Dosher, UCI Distinguished Professor of cognitive sciences, for major contributions to their fields.

Solingen, the Thomas T. & Elizabeth C. Tierney Chair in Global Peace & Conflict Studies, will be presented with the William & Katherine Estes Award for trailblazing work on nuclear proliferation and reducing the risks of nuclear war. She will receive a $20,000 prize.

“I am delighted that the National Academy is recognizing these exceptional individuals for their tremendous contributions,” said Enrique Lavernia, UCI provost and executive vice chancellor. “Like so many members of the UCI faculty, Professors Dosher and Solingen are advancing our understanding of the world and helping develop innovative solutions to worldwide challenges.”

Solingen is an internationally recognized political scientist and one of the world’s foremost experts on nuclear proliferation and the global political economy. Her book Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia & the Middle East won the American Political Science Association’s 2008 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for best book across all fields of political science, as well as its Robert L. Jervis & Paul W. Schroeder Award for best book on international history and politics. Solingen also was president of the International Studies Association from 2012 to 2013.

“These awards acknowledge the social and behavioral sciences at UCI as a true center of excellence. That they were given to two outstanding women representing very different fields—cognitive sciences and international relations—speaks to the breadth of our strengths as well as the seriousness of our commitment to expanding the horizons of our sciences,” says Bill Maurer, social sciences dean.

Solingen and Dosher will receive their awards at an April 29 ceremony during the National Academy of Sciences’ 155th annual meeting. They will be among 19 honorees in fields spanning the physical, biological, and medical sciences.

Adapted from the University of California, Irvine news release.

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Collins Recieves 2018 NEH Fellowship

University of Notre Dame political scientist Susan Collins has been awarded a 2018 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, extending the University’s record to a total of 62 fellowships since 1999.

“It is rare for a political scientist to receive an NEH fellowship,” said Luis Fraga, the Professor in Transformative Latino Leadership, the Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Professor of Political Science, and acting chair of the department. “However, Professor Collins’ research reaches across disciplinary boundaries and is solidly grounded in political theory, which is the humanities heart of all political science.”

Collins is one of 74 fellowship recipients nationwide, out of nearly 1,000 applicants. With the award, she will complete her book, Constituting the Ancient City: The Political Regime and Classical Sparta.

“I’m incredibly grateful,” she said. “NEH funding is critical taxpayer support of humane learning. Such support is especially important in the social sciences, where the humanist perspective complements the important empirical work of my colleagues.”

Collins’ book project investigates the ancient principle of politeia—meaning constitution or regime—by analyzing its treatment in the work of Aristotle and by examining the classical city of Sparta. This research, she said, provides valuable insight into some of the difficult political problems of our time.

“My work is driven by enduring questions of factional strife, war, and civil order,” Collins said. “I argue that the classical tradition—which knew well the costs of political conflict—can help us to chart a path today toward better understanding the roles of power, consent, and reason in political founding.”

Adapted from the University of Notre Dame’s news release.

Powell Wins Faculty Service Award

Robert Powell, the Robson Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley was chosen to recieve the 2018 Berkeley Faculty Service Award alongside his colleague J. Keith Gilless, professor of forest economics.

The award, conferred by the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate, recognizes their outstanding and dedicated service to the campus. Winners are selected based on activities that have “significantly enhanced the quality of the campus as an educational institution and community of scholars”—including Senate service.

Powell, who is the Robson Professor of Political Science, is an “exemplary recipient of the Berkeley Faculty Service Award,” writes former division chair Elizabeth Deakin. “One of our own PhDs in economics, he has served the campus with great distinction and dedication in a multitude of roles,” she continues. “These culminated most recently in his appointment as division chair, not for the normal period of one year, but for three entire semesters from March 2016 through August 2017. Through all this exceptionally trying period, one of the most turbulent times in the campus’s recent history, Powell gave calm and steady leadership and advice, offering reason, confidence, and good humor when many were given to panic and dismay.”

Mary Firestone, also a former chair of the Berkeley Division, describes Powell as “the person that I would want in charge or at my side when faced with consequential, Gordian issues. He is thoughtful, incisive, and he cares about people and the university.”

Adapted from the University of California, Berkeley news release.

Comfort Appointed Coeditor in Chief

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) appointed disaster management expert, Louise K. Comfort, PhD, as coeditor in chief of ASCE’s Natural Hazards Review journal. The quarterly publication covers a variety of topics including hazard mitigation, human response and significant issues related to the performance of infrastructure in a natural disaster. Nasim Uddin, PhD, PE, DWRE, FASCE is also coeditor in chief.

Comfort is skilled in decision making under conditions of uncertainty and rapid change and the uses of information technology to develop decision support systems for managers operating under urgent conditions. She advocates a sociotechnical systems approach, emphasizing the interaction between design sciences and organizational studies to create infrastructure that is resilient in a changing world. She has studied this approach in her field study work for 23 earthquakes, including events in Haiti, Japan, and Indonesia. Comfort plans to bring a sociotechnical approach with a focus on resiliency to the journal.

“Looking forward, I would like to outline a new category of sociotechnical issues for publication in the journal, as the world is much more complex, interrelated, and interconnected than any single discipline can manage,” says Comfort. “As a whole, the Natural Hazards Review should assist professionals and the public with understanding the risk of hazards in the area in which they live and give a sense of how a sociotechnical approach can help reshape infrastructure resilience for future disasters.”

Comfort holds a BA in political science and philosophy from Macalester College, a MA in political science from University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in political science from Yale University. Formerly the director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Disaster Management, Comfort is currently a professor at the university’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.