Kristen Renwick Monroe, political science and philosophy professor and founder and director of UCI’s Interdisciplinary Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality, has been selected to receive the American Political Science Association’s 2010 Ithiel de Sola Pool Award.  Established in 1995 to honor noted MIT political scientist Ithiel de Sola Pool, the prize is awarded every three years to a scholar whose work explores issues of political theory, behavior, communication, science and technology, policy, and international affairs.  As the 2010 award winner, Monroe will deliver a general lecture at APSA’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. September 2-5. 

Monroe’s research focuses on political psychology, political economy, and normative political theory. Her award-winning work on altruism and moral choice deals with a central problem in politics and ethics: the treatment of others. She has written 12 single-authored books or edited volumes and more than 50 articles. Her awards include the 2010 Paul Silverman Award for Outstanding Scientific Work on Ethics, a Pulitzer nomination, a National Book Award nomination, and two American Political Science Association Best Book Awards for both The Heart of Altruism (1996) and The Hand of Compassion (2004).  She has served as president of the International Society of Political Psychology and vice-president of the American Political Science Association. Her most recently completed works are a book on ethics in an age of terror and genocide and an edited volume on the relation of science to ethics, Uneasy Bedfellows? The Scientific Analysis of Ethics, which includes chapters by Francisco Ayala, Kenneth Arrow, Tom Schelling, Cheryl Koopman, Jennifer Hochschild, Joe DiMento and Gil Geiss.  She is currently working on several books which feature topics including Jewish émigrés from the Third Reich; an extended conversation with economist and Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow about ethics and economics; gender equity in academia; an introduction to political science; and Chloe and Nicole, and the Elephant in the Parlor, a popular introduction to ethics.