Ling Han has won an award for the best performance at the EU-sponsored China in the World Postgraduate Conference she is attending at the University of Bristol, England this summer. Congratulations to Ling on this this cash prize. (July ’08)

Caroline Lee’s July 2007 article in the American Journal of Sociology, “Is There a Place for Private Conversation in Public Dialogue?,” has been awarded the 2008 Outstanding Article Award by the Outstanding Article Award committee of the ASA Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements (CB/SM). The selection committee described the article as “theoretically rich, methodological sound, and substantively provocative. It pushes the boundaries of work in CB/SM in interesting directions.” (July ’08)

Tricia Wang and Professor Barry Brown (Communication) have received a $25,000 grant from UC MEXUS for  “Appropriate networks: Developing appropriate communication technologies for rural & international links.”  This funded project bridges social science and computer science to examines technology usage between migrant and rural-Mexican communities.  This project also builds off of the fieldwork that Leah Muse-Orlinoff and Tricia conducted in Mexico and will support these students’ fieldwork in Mexico Fall quarter.  Tricia particularly acknowledges that this successful grant was only possible because of Leah initiating their previous collaboration and sharing the resources she has access to at CCIS.  (June ’08)

Ling Han has won a fully funded position at an EU-sponsored Postgraduate Research Summer School in the UK, which provides research training in Chinese studies, for PhD students from around the globe. The program will cover substantive issues in China as well as research design, methodological strategies, etc. For more information, check out the website. (June ’08)

Congratulations to recent graduate Dr. Nadav Gabay, whose dissertation has won the prestigious Samuel H. Beer Prize from the British Politics Group of the American Political Science Association for the Best Dissertation on British Politics.   Below is a glowing description of Nadav’s work from the prize committee Chair, Richard Haesly:   

“This year we had an impressive array of topics covered in the submitted dissertations.  In the end, the committee selected Nadav Gabay as this year’s winner.  His dissertation, The Political Origins of Social Science: The Cultural Transformation of the British Parliament and the Emergence of Scientific Policymaking, 1803-1857, is an ambitious and intriguing analysis of the role that the British Parliament of the 19th century influenced the contours of social scientific inquiry.  Rich in historical analysis and innovative arguments, Gabay provides evidence that important transformations in British politics and society in the early 19th century eventually led to the emergence of social science as a discipline of inquiry. The public role of Members of Parliament changed, particularly rapidly and publicly given the increased recording and reporting of parliamentary debates, from one that emphasized the Member’s demonstration of his classical education into one that required awareness of and engagement with social and political issues. Thus, many Members of Parliament would embark on detailed analysis of large-scale social problems, such as the effectiveness of Poor Laws, the status of children’s employment (particularly in the coal mines throughout Britain) and working conditions for all factory workers. The committee was particularly impressed with Gabay’s analysis of various Commissions that Parliament established starting in the mid-1800s, and how the Members of Parliament and the commissioners faced many of the thorny epistemological and methodological issues that social scientists struggle with to this day. Without formal training in these fine methodological debates, the MPs and Commissioners carved out solutions that would be very familiar to many social scientists today in terms of how to document the existence and scope of a given social problem and to advocate particular remedies to these complex social ills.  Innovative and argued with a distinctive voice, Gabay’s work not only challenges the orthodox view of when and how social science began to take the form that it did, but it clearly advances our understanding of this key stage in the development of the British Parliament.”  

Nadav was also awarded a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His dissertation committee chair was Gershon  Shafir. (June ’08)

Fresh on the heels of his ASA Sexualities section paper award, Tom Waidzunas has won another national award: an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant!  This grant will help support his dissertation research on the social construction and understanding of scientific and religious evidence in “gay conversion therapy.”   The Program Director, Laurel Smith-Doerr wrote to Tom:   “Congratulations!  The competition was very stiff.  Your proposal was one of the few that we are likely to be recommending for funding.” Tom’s dissertation advisor is Steve Epstein, who, by NSF convention, is listed as co-PI on the grant. (May ’08)

Congratulations to Michael Evans and Yusuke Mazymi for receiving fellowships for next year. Michael has won the J. M. Hepps Graduate Fellowship for $10,000. This fellowship is given to an outstanding ABD student to assist with living and educational expenses.  (Michael’s advisor is John Evans). Yusuke has been awarded the UCSD Friends of the International Center Mary Dashen Scholarship.  This award is for $2,000.  This scholarship is named in memory of an International Center member who befriended countless international students, post-docs, and their families. (May ’08)