Alejandro Portes, the Howard Harrison and Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of Sociology Emeritus at Princeton University and an AAPSS Fellow, is the recipient of the 2019 Princess of Asturias Award in the Social Sciences.
The Princess of Asturias Awards were established “to contribute to, encourage, and promote scientific, cultural, and humanistic values that form part of humankind’s universal heritage” and are the highest form of recognition bestowed by the Spanish Crown and among the most important prizes awarded in the European Union. The awards will be presented in October at an academic ceremony held in Oviedo, capital of the Principality of Asturias, by Princess Leonor and King Felipe VI of Spain.
For several decades, Portes has been one of the leading experts on migration, studying the economic lives, health care, and political organization of immigrant communities. Portes founded the Center for Migration and Development at Princeton University. He is president of the Eastern Sociological Society and former president of the American Sociological Association. His current research focuses on the adaptation process of the immigrant second generation in comparative perspective, the role of institutions on national development, and immigration and the American health system.
