Euben, Plotkin Named Annenberg Professors
Roxanne L. Euben, Professor of Political Science, has been appointed Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Social Sciences, and Joshua B. Plotkin, Professor of Biology, has been appointed Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Natural Sciences.
Euben is a leading scholar of contemporary political theory who specializes in Islamic political thought. She came to Penn in 2018 from Wellesley College. Her books Enemy in the Mirror: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Limits of Modern Rationalism, Journeys to the Other Shore: Muslim and Western Travelers in Search of Knowledge, and Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Contexts from al-Banna to bin Laden, with Muhammad Qasim Zaman, have had a far-reaching impact in her field of study. Her research has been supported by fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the ACLS, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Euben has served in numerous leadership roles in her field, including Secretary of the American Political Science Association Governing Council and as a member of the editorial boards of the leading journals Political Theory and The American Political Science Review.
Plotkin holds secondary appointments in the Penn Arts & Sciences Department of Mathematics and the School of Engineering and Applied Science Department of Computing and Information Science. He is a leader in the field of molecular evolution and mathematical biology. His work leverages mathematical models of populations as a framework for understanding broad patterns of biological, cultural, and social evolution. He has an extensive publication record in some of the most prestigious journals in his field, and his many honors include election as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), as well as Packard, Sloan, and Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career fellowships. Plotkin has served on the editorial boards of Science Magazine, Theoretical Population Biology, and Cell Reports, as well as on the Board of Advisors of the U.S. National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis. At Penn, he has been a Penn Fellow and a member of the Faculty Senate and the Penn Arts & Sciences Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility.
The late Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg received Penn’s Alumni Award of Merit in 1991. He and the late Honorable Leonore Annenberg were both emeritus trustees of the University. The Annenbergs endowed many chairs in Penn Arts & Sciences and made countless generous contributions to the University. They also founded the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania in 1958.
