ACLS Community in the News: October 2025

Grants and Awards

• Cathy N. Davidson, 1986 Grant-In-Aid recipient and 1995 ACLS Fellow, was awarded the 2025 Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Higher Education, recognizing her “for translating research into action—and for helping institutions evolve to meet the needs of all students.”
• Josiah Ober, 1981 Research Fellow for Recent Recipients of the PhD Degree and 1989 ACLS Fellow, won the nearly $1 million 2025 Balzan Prize for Classics for his groundbreaking research on Athenian democracy.

Interviews, Reviews, and Op-Eds

• Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City by Bench Ansfield, 2020 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellow and 2022 ACLS Fellow, was reviewed in the New York Times.
• Roderick Ferguson, Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University and member of the ACLS Board of Directors, published an op-ed on Charlie Kirk and the film Sinners in Inner-City News.
• In Inside Higher Ed, 2024 ACLS Fellow Amanda Lanzillo shares “Not Just National Interest: Why Area Studies Matters.”
• Thupten Kelsang, 2023 Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Dissertation Fellow in Buddhist Studies, writes about how museums can responsibly represent Tibetan cultural heritage in the Museum of Modern Art’s post blog.
• Emily Sterk is profiled in Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service as someone “worth knowing in Milwaukee,” with a focus on her work as an 2024 ACLS Leading Edge Fellow at Milwaukee Turners.
• Toni at Random, a biography of Toni Morrison by ACLS Board Member and Howard University Graduate School Dean Dana A. Williams, was featured in the New York Times.

Leadership Moves

• Mbaye Lo, 2021 Luce/ACLS Fellow in Religion, Journalism & International Affairs, has been named director of Duke Islamic Studies Center and Duke University Middle East Studies Center.