'A smart, talented, creative thinker:' UNM political science professor dies

Mala Htun, an author who taught at the University of New Mexico for over a decade, died Friday after living with cancer the last few years.

She was 55.

“She gave us a lot of tools on how to conduct research and how to look at things critically,” said Melanie Sonntag, one of Htun’s former students.

Htun was born in Honolulu. She moved to Santa Monica, California, and then Albuquerque in 1982 when her mother became a professor at UNM. She earned degrees in international relations from Stanford University and a doctoral degree in political science at Harvard.

As an undergraduate, she stood out “as a really smart, talented, creative thinker,” said UNM political science professor Mark Peceny, who was a teaching assistant in a class Htun took at Stanford.

“She carried that throughout her entire career,” he said.

From 2000-2011, Htun was a professor at the New School for Social Research before coming back to Albuquerque to teach at UNM where she became a distinguished political science professor. Her classes focused on women’s rights, social inequalities and other issues.

She was one of the world’s top scholars of gender and representation, Peceny said.

Htun was one of the “most brilliant and outrageous women I’ve ever met, while simultaneously being absolutely down to earth,” UNM political science professor Jessica Feezell said.

Sonntag said she learned a lot from Htun while doing field work in Japan, including how to conduct interviews, “the insights she would draw from that and how she would get people to talk about certain things.”

Outside the classroom, Htun wrote three books, including “The Logics of Gender Justice: State Action on Women’s Rights around the World” that was co-authored with Laurel Weldon and won the 2019 International Studies Association’s Best Book Award in the Human Rights Section.

Along with penning books and articles, she gave talks around the country, co-chaired the Presidential Task Force on Women’s Advancement and was a fellow at the Kellogg Institute of the University of Notre Dame and the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard. In April, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

“It’s a thrill for me to earn this recognition,” Htun said in a UNM news release at the time. “I’m excited to have the opportunity to engage with the Academy’s community of scientists, artists and public intellectuals.”

Even with all her success, Htun’s husband, Doug Turner said she remained “100% committed to her students and making sure they had the best experience learning from her, the political science department and UNM.”

“She had a dozen job offers to go to UT (University of Texas), Yale or other really well-known universities and make a lot more money,” he said, “but she always had a deep commitment to the school and the state.”

Aside from academics, Htun enjoyed exploring and hitting the slopes at Taos Ski Valley.

“She had a really, very deep connection to Taos and loved the outdoors,” Turner said.

Htun is survived by Doug Turner, their three children, Alexander Turner, 18, Livia Turner, 15, and Elinor Turner, 10, and parents Dr. Helen Muller of Albuquerque and Dr. Ko Moe Htun of Honolulu.

Doug Turner said he is working with the UNM Foundation to set up an academic endowment honoring Htun. People can send donations to UNM’s Political Science Program Fund.

“She was always interested in bringing in thought-provoking speakers and thinkers, getting people to be uncomfortable, to think outside the box about a lot of these big questions that she worked on,” he said.

Services are scheduled for 3 p.m. Wednesday at Congregation Albert, 3800 Louisiana NE. People can send condolence messages to 1500 San Carlos NW. The family requested that no flowers be sent.