Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center scholars honored for scholarship, creative excellence
July 1, 2026 • Humanities and Social Sciences
Two renowned scholars from the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center have recently received awards recognizing and supporting their work and scholarship.
Margaret Morganroth Gullette
Margaret Morganroth Gullette, WSRC scholar and anti-ageist activist and essayist, is the inaugural recipient of the W. Andrew Achenbaum Award for Excellence in Gerontological Humanities, given by the Gerontological Society of America. This new GSA annual award recognizes research and creative excellence in the gerontological humanities that broadly includes, but is not limited to literature, philosophy, history, spirituality, ethics, cinema, media, poetry and the arts in relation to aging studies. The award is named for the late W. Andrew Achenbaum, a scholar in the history of aging known in the field for advancing interdisciplinary and humanistic research in gerontology. Gullette will be recognized at the 2026 GSA Annual Scientific Meeting and in GSA’s Gerontology News publication. Her most recent book, American Eldercide: How It Happened, How to Prevent It (2024) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for Nonfiction, and won a MASS Cultural Council 2025 grant in literature.
Becky Behar
Becky Behar, WSRC scholar and photographer, has been invited by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to serve as the Polly Thayer Starr Visiting Studio Artist during August and September. The collaboration between the Gardner Museum and the Polly Thayer Starr Charitable Trust allows a diverse set of local artists to work in a variety of media, using the Gardner’s collections as an inspiration to create and share that work with the public. Visitors to the museum’s education studio can engage directly with artists to create their own pieces alongside working artists. The program also promotes connections between artists participating in the program, sharing their work through salons, performances, and online networks. In this role, Behar will have the opportunity to use the museum’s collection and exhibitions as a catalyst for her own creative explorations, while also working with the museum to develop studio experiences for the public. She will be focusing on the museum’s upcoming exhibition, The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt.
