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Center for International Social Science Research

Department Website: https://cissr.uchicago.edu/

Director

  • Jenny Trinitapoli (Sociology)

Faculty Board 

  • Paul Cheney (History)
  • Michele Friedner (Comparative Human Development) 
  • Marco Garrido (Sociology)
  • Adom Getachew (Political Science)
  • Steven Pincus (History)
  • Paul Poast (Political Science)

Assistant Director

  • Dorothy Parsons

The Center for International Social Science Research (CISSR) is an eclectic intellectual community devoted to nourishing empirical international research across the social sciences. We seek to spark and sustain critical discussions that traverse disciplinary, methodological, and geographic boundaries. CISSR supports work that informs and transforms debates on global issues within the academy and beyond.

To promote the pursuit of social science and the study of topics that are global in nature at the University, CISSR sponsors a Research Fellowships program, annual book workshops, and other research activities.

  • The CISSR Faculty Research Fellows Program is designed to bring social scientists who study different parts of the world using different methods and theoretical approaches together in a common space. Rooted in the belief that the best research is produced through critical and constructive conversations in an inclusive community of global scholars, CISSR activities allow fellows to share their findings, while also exposing them to new perspectives and localities. Through sustained interactions with their peers, and with CISSR financial and administrative support, fellows can refine their research and amplify its impact. 
  • CISSR provides faculty with book support through workshops and monograph enhancement awards, which are designed to help faculty produce the highest quality manuscripts possible. 
  • CISSR supports graduate research through Dissertation Support Grants and the Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph Field Research Awards.

CISSR succeeds and builds upon the legacy of the Center for International Studies (CIS). Established fifty years ago, CIS helped catalyze the integration of international perspectives into the University’s graduate and undergraduate programs. The successes of those efforts are visible today in many curricular and pedagogic programs, from the strength of our library collections and diversity of our language offerings to the richness of undergraduate opportunities such as the Program on the Global Environment, the International Studies major, and the breadth of Civilizations Studies options, to name a few.