October 15, 2012: The Center is thrilled to announce the 2012-2013 Innovation in Scholarship Awardee will be Professor Kristin Luker. This year, the award will go to a sociologist for the first time. Professor Kristin Luker is the Faculty Director of the Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice and the Elizabeth Josselyn Boalt Professor of Law and Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley School of Law. She is the author of several books including Dubious Conceptions, published in 1995 and selected as New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She is currently at work on her fourth book, tentatively titled Bodies and Politics, about sex education controversies in the United States.
Professor Luker has received several awards, including Ford and Guggenheim fellowships, a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship and the Outstanding Faculty Award from the Alumni Association of UCSD. In 1997 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Luker received her AB from UC Berkeley in 1968 and her PhD from Yale University in 1974. The CRR Innovation in Scholarship Award recognizes a distinguished scholar whose research advances the academy’s understanding of health, women’s rights, human rights, or constitutional law. Past award winners (Reva Siegel, Ali Miller and Carol Sanger) are women who have made significant contributions to the intellectual basis of their fields through years of dedicated research as scholars and leaders within the academy.