HSS Honors and Awards
Featured Faculty Research Honor
Alvarez Wins Career Achievement Award in Political Methodology
The Society for Political Methodology honored R. Michael Alvarez, Flintridge Foundation Professor of Political and Computational Social Science, with its Career Achievement Award for his research into modeling election dynamics and his service to the profession. The award is the society’s highest honor and recognizes the “foundational, distinguished and sustained contributions to the field and the Society made by the recipients over their careers.” The Society for Political Methodology cites Alvarez for his “foundational contributions to the study of public opinion, voting behavior, election administration, and computational modeling,” his leadership “in promoting transparency and rigor in political science,” and his “commitment to supporting junior scholars.”
Featured Teaching or Mentoring Award
Ballance and Sinclair Receive 2025 Brass Division Award for Teaching
HSS awarded its 2025 Brass Division Award for Teaching to Lecturer in Music Sara Ballance and Visiting Assistant Professor of Finance Andrew Sinclair. Since joining the division in 2024, according to student evaluations, Ballance’s teaching has received some of the highest scores in the division. The faculty award committee cited her ability not only to teach how music works and how to listen to it, but to take listeners into the minds of composers and add new dimensions to the listening – all in simple but creative ways. Students in Sinclair’s courses consistently highlight his clarity, enthusiasm, and care. They describe Sinclair, who came to HSS in 2022, as “the best professor I’ve ever had”, praise his ability to combine “history, culture, economics, and finance,” and note his skill as a “great storyteller and excellent lecturer.”
Student Prizes
Announcing the 2025 HSS Student Prizewinners
The Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences is proud to present its prize recipients for the 2024–2025 academic year.