Radcliffe names 48 new fellows

The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University has announced the 48 women and men selected to be Radcliffe Institute fellows in 2010–11. These creative artists, humanists, scientists, and social scientists were chosen — from a pool of nearly 900 applicants — for their superior scholarship, research, or artistic endeavors, as well as the potential of their projects to yield long-term impact. While at Radcliffe, they will work within and across disciplines.

Two Radcliffe Institute professors will join the community of fellows next year. Joanna Aizenberg, the Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at Radcliffe and the Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials Science at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), will lead a thematic cluster in biomimetics, and Nancy E. Hill, the Suzanne Murray Professor at Radcliffe and a professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, will study cultural belief systems and ethnic group variations in parenting and children’s development.

“We welcome these distinguished fellows to the Radcliffe Institute and we enthusiastically await the important discoveries, artistic creations, and collaborations — within Radcliffe and in the wider Harvard and local communities — that will emerge during their time here,” said Barbara J. Grosz, dean of the Radcliffe Institute and Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences at SEAS.

Now in its 10th year, the Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Program has awarded fellowships to more than 500 accomplished and promising artists, scientists, and scholars. Past fellows include Elizabeth Alexander, the fourth U.S. presidential inaugural poet; Mulatu Astatke, founder of the hybrid musical form Ethio Jazz; Debra Fischer, who has participated in the discovery of roughly half the known extrasolar planets; and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Tony Horwitz.

For a list of fellows and their projects.