News
Announcing the 2021 SSRC Religion, Spirituality, and Democratic Renewal grantees
The Social Science Research Council is proud to announce the ten early-career scholars selected to receive 2021 Religion, Spirituality, and Democratic Renewal grants. The grants aim to bring knowledge of the place of religion and spirituality into scholarly and public conversations about renewing democracy in the United States. Established in 2020, the Religion, Spirituality, and Democratic Renewal grants are offered through the SSRC Religion and the Public Sphere program in partnership with the Fetzer Institute. This year’s competition emphasized research that examines the ways spirituality, religious traditions, and institutions shape democratic participation, debates, institutions, and public policies. Selected projects address topics including the complex
Announcing the 64 recipients of the 2021 International Dissertation Research Fellowships
The Council’s International Dissertation Research Fellowship (IDRF) is proud to announce the 2021 cohort of IDRF fellows. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the SSRC IDRF program offers six to twelve months of support to graduate students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences who are currently enrolled in PhD programs in the United States and conducting dissertation research on non-US or US Indigenous cultures and societies. Since its inception in 1997, the IDRF program has funded more than sixteen hundred projects spanning the globe. This year, 64 doctoral students have been chosen to receive fellowships to support their research. The cohort
The Council Mourns the Passing of Former SSRC President Eleanor Bernert Sheldon
Eleanor Bernert Sheldon, sociologist and leading figure in the establishment of the field of social indicators, who served as the first woman president of the Social Science Research Council (1972–1979), passed away on May 8 at the age of 101. Sheldon first joined the Council as a staff member from 1950 to 1951, after earning her PhD in sociology at the University of Chicago. She went on to work as a researcher at Columbia University, the United Nations, and the University of California, Los Angeles, and served as executive associate of the Russell Sage Foundation from 1961 until 1972. She
Gabriela Kirk of Northwestern University Awarded First Annual Charles E. Lindblom Memorial Fellowship
The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is pleased to announce that Gabriela Kirk of Northwestern University has been awarded the first annual Charles E. Lindblom Memorial Fellowship for her project entitled, “Can Electronic Monitoring Fix Mass Incarceration? Understanding the Role of Electronic Monitoring in Local Policy Reform.” The Charles E. Lindblom Memorial Fellowship is exclusively open to doctoral candidates at the partner institutions of the SSRC College and University Fund for the Social Sciences. Awarded annually, it supports an interdisciplinary social science project that focuses on anticipatory social research, an approach that directs research toward identifying, contextualizing, and framing emergent social phenomena.
Dr. Anna Harvey has been selected as the Council’s 15th president and CEO
The Board of Directors of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) has named Anna Harvey, a leading scholar of government, law, and inequality, and professor of politics at New York University (NYU), as its 15th president and CEO. Professor Harvey succeeds President Alondra Nelson and will take the helm of the 98-year-old organization beginning July 1, 2021. “We are delighted that Anna Harvey will lead the SSRC into its second century,” said Helen Milner, chair of the SSRC Executive Committee and search committee chair. “She has a deep understanding of interdisciplinary developments in social science, as well as the need