Six Faculty Awarded Hellman Fellowships

The Andes Mountains are one the world’s most challenging environments for biological and cultural adaptation. Little is known about when and how the first human populations solved those adaptive challenges. Haas will analyze human DNA from archaeological investigations to evaluate migration histories, high-altitude genetic adaptations and early disease ecosystems.

Hubert will build a comprehensive, representative and publicly accessible database of civil cases in the U.S. federal district courts, and use it to conduct empirical projects on two broad substantive questions. First, do more powerful litigants get ahead in the federal courts? Second, are judges in the federal courts making decisions consistently, or do litigants face the prospect of “jackpot justice”?

Merchant's research on the history of social science genomics will document intellectual and institutional links to older eugenic projects and examine why those links are not readily apparent to today’s genomic social scientists. The resulting publications will bring the history of eugenics into the 21st century, explore how eugenic thought has adapted to advances in molecular biology and assisted reproductive technology, and interrogate the relationship between eugenics and the social sciences.

Peritz will investigate whether and why U.S. trade and immigration policy has shifted in a backlash against economic globalization. These policies ignite controversy over the alleged loss of jobs to foreigners, at home and abroad. Do labor market concerns explain why members of Congress advocate trade protection or immigration restrictions? Do political parties reinforce their platforms, economics aside? The project will provide answers through a large-scale analysis of policy positions in all congressional trade and immigration bills since 1987.

Starkston will undertake mathematical research in a rapidly growing field: symplectic geometry. Her objects of study, Weinstein manifolds, have connections to string theory, algebraic geometry and low-dimensional topology. The fellowship will also support travel for a trimester program at the lnstitut Henri Poincaré.

Webster's book project, Nature in Classical Antiquity, re-evaluates how tools and technologies impacted Greco-Roman science from the sixth century BCE to the second century CE. The book will illustrate how technologies transformed ancient scientific assumptions in the fields of medicine, biology, optics, meteorology and astronomy.