Along with Barack Obama and Stephen Colbert, ASU's own Elinor Ostrom was named among TIME Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2012.
Ostrom, a research professor and distinguished sustainability scientist at ASU and the founding director of ASU's Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity, was the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics for her analysis of economic governance.
"Ostrom's work sheds light on the direction society must follow to avoid misuse of shared resources, 'the tragedy of the commons,'" writes TIME writer Robert Johnson.