George Mason University professor Louise Shelley has been named an inaugural 2015 Andrew Carnegie Fellow from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Shelley is the Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at Mason’s Schar School of Policy and Government and is the director and founder of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at Mason.
Shelley’s winning proposal to Carnegie addresses the illicit economy that is undermining the sustainability of the planet. She credits Mason’s leadership with helping her advance her research on nontraditional threats in the contemporary world.
“The university’s slogan, ‘Where innovation is tradition,’ was not just a sales pitch, but has turned out to be very true for me,” says Shelley, who founded the transnational crime center in 1998 and brought it to Mason in 2007. “The leadership of the university has consistently been behind me in teaching and writing on the ‘dark side of globalization’ before it was fashionable.”
“This is a great honor for Dr. Shelley, and it is most deserving that she is being recognized with this distinction,” says Mason president Ángel Cabrera. “Dr. Shelley’s work has made significant contributions to the fight against terrorism and corruption around the world, and this fellowship assures that she will continue to make an impact in the years to come.”
“This award caps an amazing banner academic year for Louise Shelley,” says Mark Rozell, acting dean of the School of Policy, Government and International Affairs. “Her research on transnational crime, corruption and their links to terrorism has captured the attention of policy scholars, government leaders and media around the world and deservedly so.
“For years she has documented and proven critical links between crime networks and international terrorism and today her work has special importance to understanding major international issues and crises.”
Shelley’s latest book, “Dirty Entanglements: Corruption, Crime and Terrorism” (Cambridge University Press), reveals the business logic of terrorist organizations around the world and suggests groups such as ISIS and Boko Haram can be defeated by addressing their funding sources.
Since the publication of the book last year, Shelley, who is a highly regarded expert on human trafficking, has been in demand around the world as a speaker and news source.
Her new book, to be published by Princeton University Press, underscores the environmental damage corruption does to the planet.
The Carnegie Corporation has been supporting causes, institutions and individual scholars for 100 years, helping them continue their efforts and research in social sciences and humanities. The Carnegie Fellows program—which will award $6.4 million to the 32 fellows—was created to respond to “unprecedented threats to our democracy and the international order that need to be addressed by the best of our national talent,” according to the nomination material.
The Carnegie jury considered 301 nominations and awarded 32 fellowships in this inaugural year. Each fellow will receive up to $200,000 to continue their research and writing. Read more about the awards here.
Write to Buzz McClain at bmcclai2@gmu.edu