Elizabeth Kopelman Borgwardt '82 was born in Brookline and raised in Weston. She came to Noble and Greenough School in Class IV and then became a boarder in Class II. Liz was a Senior Prefect, coxed the fall crew and performed in The Diary of Anne Frank and various other Nobles theater productions, including The American Dream which traveled to England for performances at three schools. At graduation, Liz was awarded the Alumni Association Prize for excellence in history, the Russell B. Steams Achievement Award for "scholastic excellence, distinction of character, sense of responsibility, devotion to duty... and strong promise of leadership," and the Trustees' Prize for earning the highest grade point average in her class.

After Nobles, Liz attended Cambridge University (U.K.) from which she received a B.A. in history in 1985. She went on to earn a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a Master of Philosophy degree in International Relations from Cambridge University. In law school, she specialized in international law and diplomacy and coauthored two books on international conflict - a trade book published by Harvard University Press entitled Beyond Machiavelli: Tools for Coping with Coriflict and a textbook published by Prentice Hall entitled Coping with International Conflict: A Systematic Approach to Irifluence in International Negotiation. In 2002, she completed her doctorate at Stanford.

Her dissertation garnered the Stanford History Department's best dissertation award.

Her dissertation was published as A New Deal for the World: America's Vision for Human Rights, by the Belknap imprint of Harvard University Press in 2005 and earned the Merle Curti Award from the Organization of American Historians as the best book in the history of ideas. A New Dea/for the World also won the Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations for best first book in U.S. foreign relations, as well as the Phi Alpha Theta (History Honors Society) best first book award.

Harvard University Press credits Liz with "illuminating the broader history of modem human rights...and capturing a lost vision of the American role in the world." This book was also nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in History and the National Book Award. Liz says that the book originated in John Paine's history classroom at Nobles and developed and burgeoned through her undergraduate years at Cambridge University and her graduate studies at Harvard and Stanford.

As part of the Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lectureship Program in 2006-2007, Liz lectured on the following themes: "Historical Perspectives on Human Rights and International Justice"; "Re-examining the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Trials"; "Challenges in Comparative Constitutional Interpretation;" and "Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and other Policymakers, Diplomats and Intellectuals of the 1930s and 1940s." She delivered the Stuart A. Bernath Prize Lecture at the Organization of American Historians annual conference and the C. Mildred Thompson endowed lecture at Vassar College.

In September 2010, Liz began serving as a Fellow at Stanford's Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences. Her permanent position is Associate Professor of History at Washington University in St. Louis, where she also holds a courtesy appointment in law. Today, Liz continues to specialize in the history of international law with a focus on human rights ideas and institutions. She publishes regularly in law reviews and history journals, including Diplomatic History, Law and History Review and Modern Intellectual History. She is at work on a book about crimes against humanity in history, law, and politics for Alfred A. Knopf publishing house.

The winner of six awards for excellence in teaching, Liz has served as a Fulbright Visiting Professor at the Center for American Studies at the University of Heidelberg, Germany where she remains a faculty affiliate. Past fellowships include the Warren Center for the Study of American History at Harvard; the Center for the Study of Law and Society at Berkeley Law School; and service as a Golieb Fellow in Legal History at New York University School of Law. She has clerked on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and is a member of the California Bar.

Liz has also managed to stay closely involved with Nobles in the years since her graduation. She was the first woman to be elected as a Graduate Trustee and has visited Nobles to speak at Assembly and to present her work to history classes.

In addition to all of these accomplishments, Liz and her husband, Kurt, are also the devoted parents of two children, Eva and Jay.

In recognition of her excellence in scholarship and teaching and her advocacy for human rights worldwide, the Graduates' Association takes pride in awarding the 2010 Distinguished Graduate Award to Elizabeth Kopelman Borgwardt '82.