Thomas Laqueur is a professor of history at UC Berkeley. His work on the history of sexuality, human rights, and on various aspects of death and memory have been translated into 16 languages. His 2015 book, The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains, chronicles how the living shape the dead and are in turn shaped by them. Laqueur is former director of the campus's Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities and is on the board of the National Humanities Center. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he received a $1.5 million Mellon Distinguished Achievement Award in 2008.