Americký historik Gary B. Cohen, autor knihy Němci v Praze 1861-1914 (Praha: Karolinum 2000), obdržel na návrh Masarykova ústavu a Archivu AV ČR a doporučení Vědecké a Akademické rady AV ČR čestnou oborovou medaili Františka Palackého za zásluhy v historických vědách.
Gary B. Cohen was educated at the University of Southern California (B.A., 1970) and Princeton University (M.A., 1972; Ph.D., 1975). He was a member of the University of Oklahoma history faculty from 1976 to 2001, where he taught a range of courses on modern European social and political history and East-Central Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In August 2001, after twenty-five years of service at the University of Oklahoma, he joined the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, as director of the Center for Austrian Studies, executive editor of The Austrian History Yearbook, and professor of history. In summer 2010, he completed his service at the Center for Austrian Studies and began a three-year term as chair of the Department of History, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. In 2014-2015 he served as interim director of the Center for Austrian Studies, and in January 2017 he retired from the University of Minnesota faculty.
Prof. Cohen's research has focused on social development, ethnic group relations, and education in modern Austria and the Czech lands. His publications include two monographs, The Politics of Ethnic Survival: Germans in Prague, 1861-1914 (Princeton University Press, 1981; second edition, revised, Purdue University Press, 2006) and Education and Middle-Class Society in Imperial Austria, 1848-1918 (Purdue University Press, 1996); five co-edited volumes of essays; articles in The Journal of Modern History, Central European History, The Austrian History Yearbook, Český časopis historický ,The East European Quarterly, Jewish History, and The Social Science Quarterly; and numerous book chapters. In 2000, Karolinum–The Charles University Press published a Czech translation of his study on the German minority of Prague under the title, Němci v Praze, 1861-1914; in early 2006, Purdue University Press published in paperback a revised second edition in English.
Prof. Cohen's scholarship has earned national and international recognition. Grants from the American Philosophical Society, the American Council of Learned Societies, the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), the United States Department of Education, and the National Endowment for the Humanities have supported his research. He served on the national selection committee for East European exchange fellowships of the International Research and Exchanges Board in 1984-86, and during the late 1980s was the only participant from the United States in the European Science Foundation's project on "Governments and Non-Dominant Ethnic Groups in Europe, 1850-1940." Prof. Cohen served as the executive secretary of the Society for Austrian and Habsburg History in 2000 and 2001 and served as president of the Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association in 2010. The Collegium Carolinum in Munich elected him a full member in 2003, and the Republic of Austria awarded him its Ehrenkreuz (cross of honor) for Science and Arts, first class, in November 2009. On April 15, 2011, members of the Austrian Academy of Sciences elected Prof. Cohen a Corresponding Member of the Academy's humanities and social science section. In June 2018, the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic awarded him the František Palacký Honorary Medal for Merit in Historical Sciences.