UVA Today

Law Professor Awarded Planck Fellowship, Realizing a Careerlong Ambition

Ruth Mason, the Edwin S. Cohen Distinguished Professor of Law and Taxation and the Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia, has been awarded a multiyear fellowship by Germany’s prestigious Max Planck Society to research problems at the intersection of taxation and social policy. She will be hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance and the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, both located in Munich.

Law professor Ruth Mason has lectured all over the world, and soon will add Germany to the list as a Max Planck Fellow. (UVA Law photo)

A Max Planck Law Fellow is the highest honor the Max Planck Law network confers on scholars working outside the Max Planck Society. Mason is one of just five current law fellows worldwide.

“The Max Planck Society is one of the most important research institutions in the world, so this is a significant honor,” Mason said. “This fellowship represents a special opportunity for deep collaboration with other scholars and to mentor the brightest up-and-coming doctoral and postdoctoral students.”

An internationally recognized scholar, Mason lectures around the world and has been a visiting professor at several institutions, including Yale Law School, the University of Paris (Panthéon-Sorbonne), Vienna University of Economics and Business, and the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation. She also has served as national reporter for the United States to the International Fiscal Association and is a member of the American Law Institute.

Mason’s research focuses on federalism, tax discrimination and cross-border taxation. Her work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and in the opinion of an advocate general of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

At UVA, Mason teaches taxation and serves as faculty adviser to UVA’s tax moot court team, which has won three international championships. She was named faculty director of the Virginia Center for Tax Law last summer.

Library’s Annual Report Catches Design Judges’ Eyes

The UVA Library’s 2022 Annual Report won first place in PRINT Magazine’s “PRINT Awards” in the annual report category, topping entries from New York Public Radio and the Land O’ Lakes agricultural cooperative.

The awards recognize “outstanding design in every shape and form, from the delicate texture and exquisite form of print to digital design that married technical skill with precise craftsmanship.”

“A majority of the stories in the 2022 UVA Library annual report center around the themes of hidden meaning, counternarratives, and looking deeper into history,” the judges wrote. “The cover uses texture and manipulated typography to reflect how history is often distorted to tell certain narratives and is just now being reframed to reveal the truth of the past. These details are enhanced with blind embossing on the creases of the folds to give the reader a tactile experience when holding and opening the book.”

The library contracted with Watermark Design to design the report.

Art History Professor’s Book Takes $10,000 Prize

David Getsy, UVA’s Eleanor Shea Professor of Art History, has been awarded the 2023 Robert Motherwell Award for his 2022 book, “Queer Behavior: Scott Burton and Performance Art.” The award is given annually by the Dedalus Foundation to an outstanding publication in the history and criticism of modernism in the arts and carries a $10,000 prize for its author.

Art historian David Getsy’s book, “Queer Behavior: Scott Burton and Performance Art,” earned the $10,000 Robert Motherwell Award. (Contributed photo)

The book’s subject, Scott Burton, created performance art and sculpture that drew on queer experience and sexual cultures that flourished in New York City in the 1970s.

 “David J. Getsy argues that Burton looked to body language and queer behavior in public spaces – most importantly, street cruising – as foundations for rethinking the audiences and possibilities of art,” the foundation wrote. “This first book on Burton examines his underacknowledged contributions to performance art and how he made queer life central in them.”

Getsy’s book also “greatly expands our understanding of the life and lesser-known performance work of Burton,” the awards jury noted.

Professor Wins Inaugural Ephraim Prize in Law and Economics

School of Law professor Megan Stevenson, an economist and criminal justice scholar, has won the inaugural Donald M. Ephraim Prize in Law and Economics.

Sponsored by the University of Chicago Law School, the award recognizes an early-career scholar whose work has advanced knowledge in the field and whose intellectual impact has the potential to reach the legal academy, legal profession and beyond, according to the school. The prize includes a $30,000 cash award.

Law professor Megan Stevenson, an economist and criminal justice scholar, is the first winner of a new prize from the University of Chicago Law School. (UVA Law photo)

Stevenson will be invited to present research at Chicago in the spring and during the 2023-24 academic year. Stevenson will receive the prize at a recognition event in Chicago.

“I am exceptionally pleased that our respected selection committee chose professor Stevenson, a distinguished and extensively published academic, for the inaugural award,” Ephraim said.

Stevenson has conducted empirical research in criminal justice reform, including bail, risk assessment, misdemeanors and juvenile justice. She also serves on the American Law and Economics Association board of directors. Her research on bail was cited extensively in a landmark federal civil rights decision, O’Donnell v. Harris County, which reformed the bail system in that part of Texas.

In 2022, Stevenson and her team received a $200,000 grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation to study the hidden long-term effects of incarceration. She was the 2019 winner of the Oliver E. Williamson prize for best article published in the Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization within the previous three years.

In other Law School honors:

• The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, a national student organization, named law professor Sarah Shalf its Faculty Advisor of the Year. Shalf directs UVA Law’s Community Solutions Clinic and serves as the school’s director of clinical programs.

UVA’s student chapter also received a Programming Award, given to the “strongest” American Constitution Society chapters that have conducted at least 18 substantive and compelling events during the school year, according to the society.

Cynthia Nicoletti’s appearance on a podcast to discuss the post-Civil War capture and prosecution of former Confederate President Jefferson Davis won a Webby Award. (Photo by Dan Addison University Communications)

Shalf and the chapter were honored at the American Constitution Society National Convention in May.

• An episode of the “HISTORY This Week” podcast featuring law professor Cynthia Nicoletti, a legal historian, was nominated for a Webby Award for Featured Guest Podcasts. The episode, “Reconstruction I: Secession on Trial,” explores the capture and prosecution of Confederate President Jefferson Davis after the Civil War. The award recognizes a single podcast episode showcasing a guest or special co-host.

Nicoletti’s book, “Secession on Trial: The Treason Prosecution of Jefferson Davis,” won the 2018 Cromwell Book Prize.