In 2006, under the leadership of President Janet Afary, ISIS instituted two new awards for Life-Time Achievement in Iranian Studies. Board member Mary Elaine Hegland served as chair of the Life-Time Achievement Award committees. The first Life-Time Achievement in Iranian Studies Award for a Scholar Residing and Working Inside Iran was conferred on Professor Emeritus Iraj Afshar. Professor Ehsan Yarshater was chosen to receive the first Life-Time Achievement in Iranian Studies Award for a Scholar Residing and Working Outside of Iran.
The 2010 ISIS Lifetime Achievements Awards
Awarded at the ISIS biennial conference May 2010.
Professors Jaleh Amouzgar, distinguished scholar residing in Iran and Richard Nelson Frye, distinguished scholar residing in the rest of the world are the 2010 recipients of the ISIS Lifetime Achievements Award.
The 2006 ISIS Lifetime Achievements Awards
The 2006 Life-Time Achievement Award for an Iranian Studies Scholar Residing and Working in Iran was presented to Professor Emeritus of Tehran University Iraj Afshar at the ISIS conference in London summer of 2006. Iraj Afshar for more than half a century has been laboring to construct a foundation of Iranian Studies scholarship. Through his efforts to locate, compile, catalogue, critique, publish, and write the histories of thousands upon thousands of manuscripts, documents, writings, artefacts, persons, libraries, sources, enabled the work of generations of Iranian Studies scholars. The breath of Iraj Afshar¹s scholarship is astounding, and his scholarly output has been prodigious. His sons printed a bibliography of his scholarly publications in 2003, and then an addendum in 2004. Ahmad Ashraf, Mary Elaine Hegland, and Homa Katouzian served on the 2006 award committee.
The Life-Time Achievement in Iranian Studies, for a Scholar Working and residing outside of Iran goes to Hagop Kevorkian Emeritus Professor of Iranian Studies and Editor of Encyclopaedia Iranica, Ehsan Yarshater. Like Iraj Afshar, Dr. Ehsan Yarshater has devoted a life-time to enabling the work of other Iranian Studies scholars, though gathering, compiling, editing, and publishing materials. Through his scholarship, editing, and teaching, he made extremely significant contributed to a variety of Iranian Studies fields. Dr. Ehsan Yarshater served as chief editor of Bongah-e Tarjomeh va Nashr-e Ketab for many years. He has produced sixteen books and 250 articles and continues his extremely significant work as EI Editor and also editing and contributing to a ten volume history of Persian literature. Ali Banuazizi, Mary Elaine Hegland, and Sholeh Quinn served on this award committee. (The Life-Time Achievement Award will be presented to Dr. Ehsan Yarshater at the Toronto ISIS conference this summer, July 31-August 3, 2008.)
