Michele Landis Dauber, Frederick I. Richman Professor of Law and professor (by courtesy) of sociology, received four awards  for her book, The Sympathetic State: Disaster Relief and the Origins of the American Welfare State. Awards include the J. David Greenstone Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Politics and History section, the Distinguished Book Award for 2014 of the Sociology of Law section of the American Sociological Association, the John Philip Reid Book Award, and the 2014 Littleton-Griswold Prize in U.S. law and society from the American Historical Association. In 2013 the Law and Society Association gave the book an honorable mention in its James Willard Hurst Prize in American Legal History competition.

Dauber’s scholarship focuses on the history of social provision and the U.S. welfare state. She was the 2006 recipient of Stanford’s highest teaching honor, the Walter J. Gores Award. Dauber has received numerous research grants, including one from the National Endowment for the Humanities.