April 6, 2006

Four at UCSD Awarded Prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships For 'Distinguished Achievement and Exceptional Promise'

By Barry Jagoda

Four members of the faculty of the University of California, San Diego have been named Guggenheim Fellows for 2006. They are Anthony Davis, professor of music; Robert Edelman, professor of history; John Skrentny, professor of sociology and Joel Sobel, professor of economics. Guggenheim Fellows are appointed on the basis of “distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment.” Each will pursue a specific project approved for fellowship funding of various amounts by the John Simon Foundation.

Davis, 55, a distinguished composer in the UCSD music department, will work on a new opera and use the fellowship to pursue several other composition projects.

Edelman, 60, a highly regarded interpreter of the history of sport in the Soviet Union and Russia, is completing a book on how sports are a reflection of society, more specifically looking at Moscow soccer fans and popular attitudes toward communism.

Skrentny, 40, a student of social policy, inequality and ethnicity, will focus on "the new racial division of labor in America," exploring how employers, coping with changes in civil rights law and demographic changes brought by decades of immigration, are increasingly seeing racial diversity as a benefit to their organizations.

Sobel, 52, an economic theorist, will develop mathematical models of how groups make decisions, work which may eventually lead to better decision making by juries and committees.

Media contact: Barry Jagoda (858) 534-8567