Ann M. Blair '84, an assistant professor of history and history and literature, has been awarded the fourth Radcliffe Junior Faculty Fellowship. Blair will spend the next academic year working on a project titled "The Development of the Encyclopedic Reference Work in Early Modern Europe," which studies the evolution of the encyclopedia from the mid-16th century to 1750.

In announcing Blair's selection, Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson said, "I am honored to award this fellowship to Ann Blair. We often think of ourselves as living in the world's 'information age.' However, Ann's work demonstrates that compiling and organizing important knowledge has been with us for centuries."

The Radcliffe Junior Faculty Fellowship was established in 1995 to recognize junior women on the Harvard faculty. Recipients of the award receive fellowships at the Bunting Institute, which a press release describes as "the world's premier multidisciplinary center of advanced studies for women."

Blair said she was excited to receive the award. "I'm delighted," she said. "I'm deeply honored to be joining a long trend of women scholars at [the] Bunting [Institute.]"

Blair said she has been working on the project for the last several years and that she will spend the term of her fellowship "conceptualizing and starting to write."

Blair came to Harvard as a junior professor in 1996, after teaching history at the University of California at Irvine from 1993 to 1996 and serving as a lecturer at Harvard from 1991 to 1993.

After graduating from Harvard summa cum laude with a degree in history and science in 1984, Blair obtained a master's in history and philosophy of science from Cambridge University and master's and doctorate degrees in history from Princeton.

Blair expressed great satisfaction with her award. "I am really thrilled," she said. "I couldn't have wished for more. I was actually quite surprised."