Amalia D. Kessler (MA ’96, PhD ’01), Lewis Talbot and Nadine Hearn Shelton Professor of International Legal Studies and director of the Stanford Center for Law and History, received the 2018 John Phillip Reid Book Award for Inventing American Exceptionalism: The Origins of American Adversarial Legal Culture, 1800-1877 (Yale University Press). The award is given annually by the American Society for Legal History for the best monograph on Anglo-American legal history by a mid-career or senior scholar.

Kessler has also been appointed associate dean for advanced degree programs, effective June 16, 2019. She is replacing Deborah Hensler, Judge John W. Ford Professor of Dispute Resolution, who has served in the role since it was created in 2006.