Jack Mayerhoffer ‘10 received the Outstanding Young Alumni Award from the Department of French and Francophone Studies, presented at the 2026 Alumni Awards Ceremony.

Mayerhoffer earned a bachelor of science in French and applied linguistics from Penn State in 2010 and a master of science in global affairs from Rutgers University. He is senior program officer for global coalitions at Scholars at Risk, an international non-governmental organization advancing academic freedom and providing refuge to scholars facing threat. In that role, he helps launch and strengthen regional coalitions of academics and human rights practitioners across Africa, the Americas, and Southeast Asia. He also serves as chair of the Human Rights Committee at the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. Previously, he was deputy executive director at the Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, where he worked with governments and civil society to strengthen human rights policymaking at national, regional, and global levels — including consulting with the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect. His research interests include anti-democratic movements and their relationship to political violence.