Last modified: Thursday, December 11, 2008
SPEA dean receives highest award from Society for Risk Analysis
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Dec. 11, 2008
BLOOMINGTON -- The Society for Risk Analysis has presented its 2008 Distinguished Achievement Award to John D. Graham, dean of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University.
The award, the highest honor given by the Society for Risk Analysis, recognizes extraordinary achievement in science or public policy relating to risk analysis. It was presented Tuesday (Dec. 9) during the Society's annual meeting in Boston.
Graham became dean of the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs in August, after serving as dean of the Frederick Pardee RAND Graduate School at the RAND Corp. From 2001-06, he was Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the White House Office of Management and Budget. Before that, he founded and led the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis.
"John Graham has been a pioneer in using risk analysis to solve pressing public problems -- and to choose which problems are most urgent," said Jonathan B. Wiener, professor of law at Duke University and president of the Society for Risk Analysis, who presented the award. "From Harvard to OMB to RAND to Indiana, his leadership has been unequaled on key challenges such as risk assessment, risk-risk tradeoffs, regulatory review and prompting good regulations. John Graham served as president of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) a decade ago, and the SRA Council is now delighted to be conferring on him its highest award, for Distinguished Achievement."
"John Graham is deeply deserving of this award," added William D. Ruckelshaus, former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, who received the Society's Distinguished Achievement Award in 1989. "His high degree of integrity and constant insistence on rigor of scientific and policy analysis single him out for this honor."
Other prior winners of the Distinguished Achievement Award include Harvard Professors Howard Raiffa and Sheila Jasanoff, cancer biologist Arthur Upton and German sociologist Ortwin Renn.
The Society for Risk Analysis is a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, scholarly, international society that provides an open forum for all those who are interested in risk analysis. Risk analysis is broadly defined to include risk assessment, risk characterization, risk communication, risk management and policy relating to risk, in the context of risks of concern to individuals, to public and private sector organizations, and to society at a local, regional, national or global level.
The IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs is committed to teaching, research and service in areas such as public and nonprofit management, public policy, environmental science, criminal justice, arts administration and health administration. SPEA has earned national distinction for innovative educational programs that combine administrative, social, economic, financial and environmental disciplines.
