2 Texas Professors Among 33 Andrew Carnegie Fellows Winners
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NEW YORK (CBSDFW.COM/AP) — Carnegie Corporation of New York on Tuesday announced 33 winners of its prestigious Andrew Carnegie Fellows in recognition of their proposed research on an array of topics in the social sciences and humanities and two Texas professors are among them.
Each of the 2016 winners of the so-called "brainy awards" will receive up to $200,000 to fund one or two years of scholarly research in areas including education, law, technology, business and public policy.
The philanthropic foundation selected the winners based on the originality and potential impact of their proposals, and with the expectation that their research and writing will result in a book or major publication.
The recipients include Margaret Burnham, a professor of law at Northeastern University and
the first black female judge in Massachusetts. An expert on civil and human rights, she is completing an archive of 400 unsolved murder cases from 1930 through 1970 in the South believed to have been racially motivated.
Matthew Furmann is an Associate Professor of Political Studies at Texas A&M University. He is doing research that focuses on international international security, foreign policy, and international institutions, with an emphasis on armed conflict and nuclear proliferation.
Harel Shapira is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. In his study of the customs of individual peoples and cultures, Shapira is focusing on political life in contemporary America, with an emphasis on right wing politics.
Mark Danner, an award-winning investigative journalist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is looking at the crumbling borders in the Middle East and the implications it will have for democracy and world order.
Another winner, Thomas Weiss, a professor of international relations and global governance at the Graduate Center of The City University of New York, is exploring the concept of a world without the United Nations. A leading expert on the world body, Weiss' research looks at how the 70-year-old institution could be more creative and effective.
Other topics include the impact of economic growth on climate change, the abolition of the prison system as a failed institution and ways to improve the selection of judges.
The winners were selected from a pool of 200 candidates by a panel of jurors that included heads of universities, foundations and scholarly institutions.
It's the second year the foundation has given out the awards.
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