Katherine Verdery named 2020 Distinguished Contributions Award Recipient

The 2020 ASEEES Distinguished Contributions to Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Award, which honors eminent members of the profession who have made major contributions to the field through scholarship, mentoring, leadership, and service to the profession, is presented to Katherine Verdery, Julien J. Studley Faculty Scholar and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center

Professor Katherine Verdery has profoundly shaped Russian and East European Studies and core debates in the social sciences. An anthropologist of political, economic, and cultural transition in East Central Europe, and particularly Romania, Verdery is a leading ethnographer of the region and theorist of socialism and postsocialism. Verdery’s scholarship has been enormously influential in disciplines beyond anthropology, including history, sociology, and political science. Verdery has trained multiple generations of scholars, who describe her as the model they aspire to as they mentor their own students. She has also held key leadership positions, serving as the President of AAASS/ASEEES among many other roles in the organization and in service to the profession. In light of her brilliant, wide-reaching scholarship, and her extraordinary leadership and mentorship, ASEEES is pleased to present Katherine Verdery with a Distinguished Contributions Award in recognition of her singular influence on Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies.

Click through to read the full citation of her many accomplishments.