Somerville alumna and Emeritus Fellow Professor Frances Stewart (née Kaldor, 1958, PPE) has been named as one of 74 leading academics elected to the Fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences.
Professor Stewart’s award comes in recognition of her long and distinguished career in Development Economics focusing on understanding and addressing the issues of poverty, inequality and conflict.
After studying PPE at Oxford, she authored many publications including co-authoring UNICEF’s influential study, Adjustment with a Human Face (1987), and directed a number of major research programmes supported by funding from the UK Government’s Department of International Development, the Swedish Development Agency, and the Carnegie Corporation.
She was Director of the Oxford Department of International Development from 1993-2003 and as Director of the Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE) at the department between 2003 and 2010, and formerly served as Chair of the United Nations Committee on Development Policy and Vice-Chair of the Board of the International Food Policy Research Institute.
In 2009, she was given the UNDP’s Mahbub ul Haq award for her lifetime’s achievements in promoting human development, and in 2013 she received the Leontief prize for advancing the frontiers of economic thought.
“I am delighted to have been elected to the fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences,” said Professor Stewart.
“I owe such a lot to Somerville, which has been a welcoming home since I became an undergraduate in 1958. Somerville’s values of justice, tolerance, fellowship and scholarship have informed all my work.”
Speaking to Oxford University, Professor Timothy Power, Head of the Social Sciences Division, said: “I am delighted to congratulate our Divisional colleagues on their appointment as Fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences.
“This distinction is testimony not only to the rigour and excellence of their work, but also to their outstanding contributions to tackling some of the most pressing economic, social, and environmental challenges confronting society.”