Prof. Donald Kommers Wins Major Fellowship
By: Melanie McDonald
Date: February 11, 2008
“I’m quite grateful, needless to say.” That is the reaction of distinguished Notre Dame Law Professor Donald Kommers when asked about winning the prestigious Berlin Prize Fellowship from The American Academy in Berlin. An expert in comparative constitutional law, Kommers will spend a semester in Berlin next year to complete a research project on Germany’s constitutional culture.
“Your project met with resounding praise, and I am greatly looking forward to hosting you here,” wrote Dr. Gary Smith, executive director of The American Academy in Berlin, in a letter to Kommers.
The mission of the American Academy in Berlin is to strengthen the transatlantic relationship by promoting intellectual and cultural exchange.
The prize is a residential fellowship for advanced study in the arts, culture and public affairs. The Academy bestows between ten and 20 awards each year world-wide. Fellows have a concurrent association with a Berlin institution such as a museum, library, archive, art institute, film studio or university. Kommers will be affiliated with the law faculty of Berlin’s Humboldt University.
With scores of major publications to his name, Kommers’ work has been highly acclaimed by legal scholars and political scientists alike. A leading American authority on Germany’s political and constitutional system, he was honored recently by Heidelberg’s Ruprecht-Karls-University “for advancing cooperation between American and German legal scholars and for the role his publications have played in bringing Germany’s constitutional jurisprudence to the attention of Anglo-American legal audiences.”
The American Academy in Berlin was established in September 1994 on the initiative of Richard C. Holbrooke, Thomas Farmer, Henry Kissinger, Richard von Weizsäcker, and a number of other distinguished Americans and Germans committed to a healthy transatlantic relationship.
For more information on Professor Kommers, go to his faculty web page.
