Professor Ruth Wilson Gilmore (Earth and Environmental Sciences/American Studies) has been selected from a competitive field of scholars as Purchase College-SUNY’s inaugural Eugene Grant Distinguished Scholar.

The prize, created by Eugene and Emily Grant to promote academic excellence and student success, was granted in recognition of Gilmore’s innovative work on the environment.

In the upcoming year, Gilmore’s research will inspire students in areas including environmental studies, sociology, visual arts, and new media to use water as a lens to investigate issues such as the price of food, medical conditions, housing quality, and land displacement. Her wide-ranging research interests include revolution and reform, environments and movements, prisons, urban–rural continuities, and the African diaspora.

“I am deeply honored to be the first recipient of this prize and look forward to working with the college to turn my year-long theme into a set of challenges and opportunities for involvement, research, and reflection,” Gilmore said in a statement released by Purchase. “It is my hope that the events and engagements will produce critical thinking and new insights.”

Gilmore is Director of the GC’s Center for Place, Culture and Politics. The recipient of many major honors and awards, she is also a prolific lecturer and author whose publications include the prize-winning Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California (2007), described as “the first must-read book of the 21st century” by the San Francisco Chronicle.