Of Note

Director Melani Cammett and Three Weatherhead Affiliates Join Class of 2025–2026 Fellows at Harvard Radcliffe Institute

Weatherhead Center Director Melani Cammett, Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs at Harvard University, will join the class of 2025–2026 fellows at Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Also joining next year’s class are three Weatherhead Center affiliates at Harvard University: Faculty Associate Kirsten Weld, professor of history; Graduate Student Associate Andrew O'Donohue, PhD candidate in the Department of Government; and Graduate Student Affiliate Maya Doig-Acuña, PhD candidate in the Department of African and African American Studies. This twenty-sixth class of fellows will spend the next academic year at Radcliffe to “pursue an array of projects that advance bold new thinking across disciplines.” 

Yuhua Wang Named Harvard College Professor

Faculty Associate Yuhua Wang, the Ford Foundation Professor of Modern China Studies at Harvard University, was among the five faculty members being awarded a Harvard College Professorship for excellence in undergraduate teaching. “The Harvard College Professorship was launched in 1997 with a gift from John and Frances Loeb,” writes the Harvard Gazette. “Professors hold the title for five years and receive support for a research fund, summer salary, or semester of paid leave.” Wang was praised for encouraging intellectual debates in his classroom, a format he describes as being useful for gaining deeper understanding of critical questions.

Sahana Ghosh Receives Honorable Mention for Book

Former Academy Scholar Sahana Ghosh, now assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at the National University of Singapore, received an honorable mention for the 2025 APLA Book Prize in Critical Anthropology competition for her book, A Thousand Tiny Cuts: Mobility and Security across the Bangladesh-India Borderlands. This book prize is given by the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology for “work that best exemplifies creativity and rigor in the ethnographic exploration of politics, law, and/or their interstices.”

Ieva Jusionyte Book Wins Multiple Awards

Former Faculty Associate Ieva Jusionyte, now the Watson Family University Associate Professor of International Security and Anthropology at Brown University, is the recipient of several awards for her book, Exit Wounds: How America's Guns Fuel Violence across the Border. The book won the 2025 R.R. Hawkins Award and the Prose Award for Excellence in Social Sciences, both of which are administered by the Association of American Publishers every year. The prestigious R.R. Hawkins Award was created in 1976 to recognize outstanding scholarly works in all disciplines of the arts and sciences. The book also received the 2025 Juan E. Méndez Book Award, which recognizes an outstanding publication on human rights, democracy, and social justice in contemporary Latin America.

Orlando Patterson Receives MLK Jr. Social Justice Award

Faculty Associate Orlando Patterson, the John Cowles Professor of Sociology at Harvard University, is the recipient of the twenty-fourth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Social Justice Award for his extensive research into Jamaican slavery. The award is given by the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania to highlight an individual with “influential scholarship and commitment to social justice.” Patterson gave a lecture prior to receiving the award the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Andrew O’Donohue Selected as 2025 Harvard Horizons Scholar

Graduate Student Associate Andrew O’Donohue, a PhD candidate in the Department of Government at Harvard University, is one of eight extraordinary researchers selected to be 2025 Harvard Horizons Scholars. All eight scholars receive in-depth mentoring on the art of effective presentation to prepare them for a campus-wide symposium in Sanders Theatre in April. O'Donohue explores the complexities of democratic resilience in his project, "Law versus Democracy: Why Courts Defend or Undermine Democracy in Turkey, Israel, and Beyond."

Victor Seow Wins Sarton Prize for the History of Science

Faculty Associate Victor Seow, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University, is the recipient of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences’ Sarton Prize for the History of Science. Recognized for his promise as an emerging scholar in the field, Seow “specializes in the history of technology, science, and industry, focusing on China and Japan in their global contexts, with particular interest in histories of energy and work.” His recent book, Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia, received multiple prizes across different fields.

Emily Breza Receives Presidential Early Career Award

Harvard Academy Senior Scholar Emily Breza, the Frederic E. Abbe Professor of Economics at Harvard University, is a recipient of the 2025 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) Award. The prize is the highest honor bestowed by the US government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers. Breza—whose work centers on development economics, with a focus on financial markets, labor markets, and social networks—was chosen for her groundbreaking research at the frontiers of science and technology.

Marco M. Aviña and Julio S. Solís Arce Receive APSA Award

Former Graduate Research Fellow Marco M. Aviña and current Graduate Student Associate Julio S. Solís Arce are among the twenty-two recipients of the 2024 APSA Advancing Research Grants for Indigenous Politics. Aviña won for the project “Increasing Support for Reconciliation in Settler Colonial Societies: The Role of Informational Interventions” and Arce won for the project “A Culture of Consensus: Congruence and Collective Choice Among the Tswana.” The prize is distributed by the American Political Science Association and awards scholars whose research areas focus on one or more of the following target research areas: Indigenous studies, Indigenous political science, sovereignty, tribal governance, and native studies.

Mahzarin R. Banaji Wins BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award

Faculty Associate Mahzarin R. Banaji, the Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard University, is a recipient—along with other social psychologists—of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Social Sciences. Banaji, along with her colleague Anthony Greenwald, received the award for her work in developing the implicit association test, “which enables reliable measurement of implicit bias and its effects on decision-making.” The BBVA Foundation, part of the financial group BBVA (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria), has sponsored this award since 2009, which recognizes significant contributions in the areas of scientific research and cultural creation.

S.V. Subramanian Wins AAG's 2025 Health Data Visualization Award

Faculty Associate S.V. Subramanian, professor of population health and geography at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, along with the other members of his team, are the recipients of the 2025 Health Data Visualization Award for their project “India Policy Insights: A Spatio-Temporal Visualization Platform for Health and SDOH Data.” The award, given by the American Association of Geographers, goes to excellent spatial data visualizations that offer insight into health or medical geography topics.  

Juho Lindman and Jukka Mäkinen Win Best Paper Prize by Journal of Information Technology

Two former SCANCOR scholars, Juho Lindman, professor of information systems at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden), and Jukka Mäkinen, professor of business ethics at the Estonian Business School, are recipients of the Journal of Information Technology Best Paper Prize for their paper, “Big Tech's Power, Political Corporate Social Responsibility and Regulation,” which examines the complex relationship between the economic dominance of technology giants and the principles of liberal democracy. In their paper, “the scholars outline how the growing influence of these companies necessitates stronger regulatory frameworks to safeguard fundamental rights and democratic processes.”

Director Melani Cammett Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences Alongside Three Faculty Associates

Weatherhead Center Director Melani Cammett, Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs at Harvard University, has been elected to the 2025 class of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Since 1780, the organization has “honored excellence and convened leaders from across disciplines and divides to examine new ideas, address issues of importance, and work together ‘to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.’” Also in this year’s class are three Faculty Associates: Francis X. Clooney, Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology at Harvard Divinity School; Taeku Lee, Bae Family Professor of Government at Harvard University; and Doris Sommer, Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University.