Division of Social Sciences

Photo by Megan Bailey

Known as the Emmy Awards of francophone Canada, “Le Rêve de Champlain” won a Gémeaux prize in the category of Best digital production (website and/or mobile application) for a program or series: docudrama. Professor David Hackett Fischer’s bestselling book, Champlain’s Dream (2008), inspired and informed the French-language docufiction series. The prize was announced on September 20^th during the 30^th Gala des Prix Gémeaux in Montréal.

The innovative format of the “Le Rêve de Champlain” series combines dramatic scenes—starring popular Canadian actor Maxime Le Flaguais as Champlain—with interviews and reports hosted by renowned journalist and host Marie-Louise Arsenault.  The Champlain series was developed by Groupe Media TFO under the direction of Martin Cadotte and produced by Slalom and the Fair-Play Group. The series is accompanied by a suite of digital products, including a website, which includes interviews with Professor Fischer, as well as interactive games and educational applications that allow users of all ages to follow in the footsteps of Samuel de Champlain and to relive an era that shaped Canadian history.  An English Language version of this series is currently in production as well.

Professor Fischer is a University Professor and the Earl Warren Professor of History at Brandeis University

The Division of Social Sciences is proud to congratulate Dr. Margie Lachman on receiving the Gerontological Society of America’s 2015 Behavioral and Social Sciences Distinguished Career Contribution to Gerontology.

Dr. Lachman’s research is in the area of lifespan development with a focus on midlife and later life. Her current work is aimed at identifying psychosocial (e.g., sense of control, social support) and behavioral (e.g., physical exercise) factors that can protect against, minimize, or compensate for declines in cognition (e.g., memory) and health. She is conducting studies to examine long-term predictors of psychological and physical health, laboratory-based experiments to identify psychological and physiological processes involved in aging-related changes, and intervention studies to enhance performance and promote adaptive functioning.

Thank you Dr. Lachman for your contributions to your Brandeis colleagues, students and the world.

Eva Bellin, the Myra and Robert Kraft Professor of Arab Politics, has been named the recipient of the 2015 Mentor Award. The $2,500 award will be presented on April 23 by Susan Birren, the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. The Mentor Award recognizes faculty members who exhibit outstanding mentorship of graduate students, including:

• Inspiring excellent academic performance from students
• Advising and guiding research
• Organizing an effective environment for research and scholarship
• Developing talents such as research skills, teaching ability, presentations, writing and preparation of grant and fellowship applications
• Sponsoring students in the academic and professional community
• Interacting effectively with students
• Responding to students’ academic and personal needs
• Providing career guidance and helping students find professionally relevant employment
• Serving as a successful role model

Read more about Dr. Berlin’s award here.

Brandeis Anthropology PhD alum David I. Kertzer (PhD, 1974) has just received the 2015 Pullitzer Prize for Biography-Autobiography for his The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and The Rise of Fascism in Europe. Judges cited the book as “an engrossing dual biography that uses recently opened Vatican archives to shed light on two men who exercised nearly absolute power over their realms.”  http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2015-Biography-or-Autobiography

Currently a professor of Anthropology and Italian Studies at Brown University, Kertzer was appointed Provost in 2006, serving in that role until 2011. Kertzer founded and directed the Anthropological Demography program. He was also founding director of the Politics, Culture, and Identity research program of the Watson Institute for International Studies. A Brown alumnus (A.B., 1969), Kertzer received a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Brandeis University in 1974.

In an introduction written especially for the Brandeis Magazine (Winter 2014), David Kertzer describes how he came to his galvanizing topic: http://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2014/winter/featured-stories/pope.html