Elinor Ostrom is the Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science and Professor of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. Her groundbreaking work on natural resource governance was presented in her 1990 book Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, in which she countered the conventional wisdom that the best arrangement for managing common-pool resources is either privatization or government control. Rather, her research has shown that principles such as maintaining clearly defined boundaries and collective efforts to monitor inappropriate behavior could result in successful management of common-pool resources, such as watersheds, irrigation systems, and fishing grounds. Her study of irrigation in Nepal later showed that farmer-managed systems tended to be superior to government-managed systems and in more recent years she has used remote satellite sensing, among other tools, to examine how different management systems affect forestry resources.

Dr. Ostrom is also recognized for co-founding an institution in 1973 that has shaped the careers of hundreds of social scientists: Indiana University's Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. Under her direction and that of Vincent Ostrom, the Workshop has served as a supportive center for the coordination of long-term cross-disciplinary policy projects. Today, the Workshop attracts scholars in a wide variety of fields and has developed an international network of scholars and practitioners, including ties to the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Bielefeld, Germany and the Beijer Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Dr. Ostrom is also Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity at Arizona State University. In addition to Governing the Commons, she has authored or co-authored numerous books, including Understanding Institutional Diversity (2005); The Samaritans' Dilemma: The Political Economy of Development Aid (2005); The Drama of the Commons (2002); and Institutional Incentives and Sustainable Development: Infrastructure Policies in Perspective (1993).

To read Dr. Ostrom‘s remarks upon installation as a Fellow, click here.