Tamar Kricheli-Katz, JSM ’05, JSD ’12 (PhD ’12), and Binyamin Blum, JSM ’06, JSD ’11 (MA ’11), are young scholars with much in common: Both hail from Israel, where they attended the law school at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and clerked for the Supreme Court of Israel. And now, each has been awarded one of Stanford’s new Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowships, a top honor the university gives to doctoral students immersed in interdisciplinary research. • Pursuing doctoral degrees in law and sociology at Stanford, Kricheli-Katz studies organizational practices, especially those associated with changing legal regimes. One of her papers examined the concept of “organizational fields.”

“The question she pursued is one many have speculated about but have never answered empirically until now,” says Michele Landis Dauber, professor of law and Bernard D. Bergreen Faculty Scholar and a professor (by courtesy) in the Department of Sociology. “This is a significant contribution for any scholar, but a truly impressive one for such a young student.”

Blum, who received his JSM from Stanford Law in 2006 as part of the Stanford Program in International Legal Studies, is researching the transplantation of English common law into the Middle East following World War I, specifically criminal procedure and rules of evidence, to suit local circumstances in Palestine and Iraq. “Binyamin’s research is at the cutting edge of work in the fields of law and history and addresses an issue of crucial social importance: the problem of legal transplantation and its unintended consequences,” says Amalia D. Kessler (MA ’96, PhD ’01), professor of law and Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar and professor (by courtesy) of history , who serves as Blum’s advisor.