Faculty awards

Notable 2025-2026 awards

• The University of Michigan honored Samuel Bagenstos with the 2025 President's Award for Public Impact for his service as general counsel at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
• Sarah Cohodes, Brian Jacob, and Christina Weiland were ranked among Education Week's top 200 university-based scholars in the U.S. who had the biggest impact on educational practice and policy in 2025.
• The University of Michigan Regents named Christian Davenport and Kathryn Dominguez as Distinguished University Professors. The distinction is the University's most prestigious professorship, recognizing senior faculty with exceptional scholarly achievements, a national reputation for academic excellence, and a superior record of teaching, mentoring, and service.
• Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan won the Public Management Research Association's 2026 Riccucci-O'Leary Award for the best article on diversity in public management.
• Paula Lantz received the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science's 2026 J. Michael McGinnis Leadership Excellence Award.
• Katherine Michelmore was one of 90 experts inducted into the National Academy of Social Insurance.
• Donald Moynihan was named a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow. The fellowship will support research on how the Trump administration's management of public services is affecting both the government's ability to deliver key services and meet democratic accountability.
• Ambassador Susan Page received the United Nations Association USA's 2025 Ralph Bunche Humanitarian Award in recognition of her career in peacebuilding, international cooperation, and diplomacy.
• Luke Shaefer was named Detroit's inaugural chief executive of Health, Human Services & Poverty Solutions.
• Dean Celeste Watkins-Hayes was elected to the National Academy of Public Administration as a member of its 2025 Class of Academy Fellows.

Notable 2024-2025 awards

• Charlotte Cavaille's book Fair Enough? Support for Redistribution in the Age of Inequality was awarded Best Book from the American Political Science Association's European Politics & Society Section and Best Book from the Class & Inequality Section, as well as an honorable mention for the Gregory Luebbert Best Book Award by the APSA Comparative Politics Section.
• Christian Davenport was one of eight faculty and staff leaders from across the University of Michigan appointed to the University's new Raoul Wallenberg Institute executive committee to study hatred directed against religious and ethnic communities.
• Earl Lewis was a recipient of the University of Michigan's inaugural President's Medal of Excellence.
• Katherine Michelmore won the 24th David N. Kershaw Award and Prize for her contributions as a leading scholar and educator on the social safety net, education policy, and labor economics.
• Kaitlin Raimi was elected as a fellow at the American Psychological Association for her outstanding contributions to the field.
• Barry Rabe was named a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center.
• Luke Shaefer's book, The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America, was awarded the 2023 Richard A. Lester Book Award at Princeton University.
• Molly Spencer won the New Measure Poetry Prize for her recently published third poetry collection, Invitatory.

Notable 2023-2024 awards

• Charlotte Cavaillé joined the editorial board of the Journal of Experimental Political Science.
• Morela Hernandez was inducted into the prestigious Society for Organizational Behavior.
• Paula Lantz was recognized as a University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor for her contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion through research, teaching, and service. She also received a Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award.
• Jeffrey Morenoff was appointed to the Government and Public Affairs Committee (GPAC) of the Population Association of America and the Association of Population Centers, which works to educate policymakers about population research outcomes.
• Susan D. Page was selected by the National Academy of Public Administration for inclusion in its 2023 Class of Academy Fellows.
• Shobita Parthasarathy was named to the scientific council for ANSES, the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety.
• Charles Shipan won the James C. Garand Outstanding Mentoring Award from the Southern Political Science Association.
• Betsey Stevenson joined Lyft's Board of Directors.
• Megan Stewart won the American Policy Science Association's 2021-22 Conflict Processes Section's Best Book Award for her book, Governing for Revolution: Social Transformation in Civil War. The Conflict Processes Section's Best Book Award is awarded every two years for the best book for the study of any and all forms of political conflict both within and between nation-states.
• Dean Celeste Watkins-Hayes joined the inaugural Center for Academic Innovation advisory council.
• Janet Weiss was elected as Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Academy of Public Administration.
• Alford A. Young Jr. was recognized as a University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor for his contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion through research, teaching, and service.
• Paula Lantz and Alford Young joined the Michigan Society of Fellows as senior fellows.

Notable 2022-2023 awards

• Robert Axelrod was awarded the 2022 Boris Mints Institute (BMI) Prize. In its citation, the Institute noted his ground-breaking work in applying game theory to conflict resolution. As part of the prize, Axelrod was able to direct $100,000 to a research institute of his choice. He graciously named the Ford School's International Policy Center.
• Paul Courant received the 2022 Paul Evan Peters Award. The award recognizes notable, lasting achievements in the creation and innovative use of network-based information resources and services that advance scholarship and intellectual productivity.
• Amanda Kowalski received the Willard G. Manning Memorial Award for the Best Research in Health Econometrics from the American Society of Health Economics (ASHEcon).
• Earl Lewis was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Joe Biden during a White House ceremony. He is the first U-M faculty member to receive this prestigious award.
• Molly Spencer's poetry collection, Invitatory, was selected as a 2022 New Measure Poetry Prize Winner.
• Betsey Stevenson was awarded one of two 2022 presidential awards for public engagement, the President's Award for National and State Leadership.

Notable 2021-2022 awards

• The Board of Regents extended a rare Regents' Citation of Honor to Susan M. Collins for her dedication and service to the university as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.
• Ben Green's paper, "The Flaws of Policies Requiring Human Oversight of Government Algorithms," received the Privacy Papers for Policymakers Award, which highlights researchers tackling questions about how individuals and society relate to technology and data. Green was also named a non-resident fellow with the Center for Democracy & Technology and received the Future of Privacy Forum's Privacy Papers for Policymakers Award.
• Betsey Stevenson was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Social Insurance for her outstanding contributions to social insurance and related policy areas.
• Luke Shaefer was awarded one of two 2021 presidential awards for public engagement for his work on the expanded Child Tax Credit and his dedication to leveraging research to help communities and advance social policy.
• Celeste Watkins-Hayes and Deborah Rivas-Drake were named among five inaugural Research and Community Impact Fellows through the National Center for Institutional Diversity's Anti-Racism Collaborative.
• Brian Jacob and Christina Weiland were among four U-M scholars listed on the 2022 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence rankings.
• Dean Yang received the Rackham Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award for recruiting graduate students, creating a rigorous and supportive environment for student scholarship and research, and advancing and enriching students' long-term professional development.

Notable 2020-2021 awards

• John Ayanian was awarded the 2020-21 Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research mentoring award for his dedication and contributions to the scientific research careers of their students, fellows, and trainees.
• Dean Michael Barr was elected as a National Academy of Public Administration Fellow and appointed APSIA Executive Committee Secretary and Treasurer.
• Jenna Bednar served as a Stanford University Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences Fellow. The program brings together deep thinkers from diverse disciplines and communities to advance understanding of the full range of human beliefs, behaviors, interactions, and institutions.
• The Heinz Family Foundation honored William (Bill) Bynum, Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence at the Ford School, as one of six recipients of the 26th Heinz Awards. This prestigious award recognizes his "outstanding contributions of those who are changing our world for the better."
• The Ford School won the APSIA Innovation Award for Professional Development Programming for its Student-Initiated Projects (SIPs) and Extended Research Projects (ERPs).
• Jane Furey (PhD '25) won the American Educational Research Association's Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award for her article, "What Happens When You Combine High School and College? The Impact of the Early College Model on Postsecondary Performance and Completion."
• Elisabeth Gerber was named as a Center for Academic Innovation Faculty Innovator in Residence. She began to work with CAI experts and with faculty partners committed to innovating education through learning innovation and design, educational technology, and educational data and research.
• Rick Hall received the American Political Science Association (APSA) Samuel J. Eldersveld Career Achievement Award, which recognizes a scholar whose lifetime professional work has made an outstanding contribution to the field, and the APSA Excellence in Mentoring Award. Hall also received APSA's 2020 Barbara Sinclair Career Award.
• Morela Hernandez was shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Award, one of eight people highlighted from around the world for their work around leadership.
• Brian Jacob received the U-M's Rackham Distinguished Faculty Award for his empirically rigorous and policy-relevant research and for being the first to apply new causal inference tools from economics to education to pinpoint drivers of educational outcomes and student success.
• John Leahy was named an Econometric Society Fellow. Leahy was nominated by his peers, and is only one of three fellows ever elected from the University of Michigan.
• Shobita Parthasarathy received U-M's Rackham Faculty Recognition Award for her work at the intersection of equity, ethical, environmental and health dimensions of technology.
• Natasha Pilkauskas received the IPUMS Research Award for her research on "Historical Trends in Children Living in Multigenerational Households in the United States: 1870–2018."
• Poverty Solutions won the NASPAA 2020 Social Equity Award, which honors a program that exemplifies the highest standards in social equity through outstanding contributions in research, teaching, and service.
• Barry Rabe won the NASPAA Distinguished Research Award, recognizing his outstanding contributions to the field of environmental policy and practice. His co-authored book, Trump, the Administrative Presidency, and Federalism won the Louis Brownlow Award from the National Academy of Public Administration.
• Joy Rohde was selected as a 2020-2021 scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, where she will write a book that locates the history of big data policy interventions in the years after World War II.
• Luke Shaefer was awarded the Carnegie Fellowship in May 2020. He will receive $200,000 in philanthropic support for his project, Understanding Communities of Deep Disadvantage. Luke will also receive the 2021 President's Award for Public Impact.
• Charles Shipan received the Rackham Distinguished Graduate Mentoring Award.
• Molly Spencer was named an Institute for the Humanities Summer Faculty Fellow. Her second poetry collection, Hinge, was co-winner of the 2019 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition.
• Celeste Watkins-Hayes was honored with the American Sociological Association (ASA) Distinguished Scholarly Book Award. Her book was also named co-winner of the 2020 ASA Sociology of Sex and Gender Distinguished Book Award and winner of the Eliot Freidson Outstanding Publication Award from the ASA's Medical Sociology Section.