Janine R. Wedel is a University Professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. She is a pioneer in applying anthropological insights to topics dominated by political scientists, economists, or sociologists.
Wedel writes about governing, corruption, foreign aid, and elite influencers through the lens of a social anthropologist. She has an internationally recognized record of innovative scholarly research and commentary on current intellectual issues. She has been named a Global Policy Chair at the University of Bath in the U.K.; a fellow at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin; and the Kerstin Hesselgren Professor in Sweden. She is the first anthropologist to win the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, an honor typically reserved for political scientists (previous recipients include Samuel Huntington and Mikhail Gorbachev).
Wedel is cofounder and president of the Association for the Anthropology of Policy (ASAP), a section of the American Anthropological Association.
A five-time Fulbright fellow, Wedel has also won awards from the National Science Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Institute for New Economic Thinking, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the New America Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the International Research and Exchanges Board, the Social Science Research Council, the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, the United States Institute of Peace, the German Marshall Fund, the Eurasia Foundation, the National Institute of Justice, and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, among others.
