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Time Magazine names four Harvard scientists among “America’s Best”

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Researchers honored for groundbreaking work

Four from Harvard are included in Time magazine’s select list of America’s Best in science and medicine.

Four Harvard scientists are among the 18 leaders in science and medicine singled out by the editors of Time magazine as America’s Best in science and medicine.

The much-honored evolutionary biologist, Pellegrino University Research Professor E.O. Wilson, is recognized for lifetime achievement. The other Harvard honorees are Fisher Professor of Natural History and curator of the paleobotanical collection at the Harvard University Herbaria Andrew Knoll, Paul Ridker, cardiologist at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and psychologist Elizabeth Spelke, who joined the Psychology Department this past July.

Knoll studies why multicellular life emerged with a bang 540 million years ago. Ridker is, according to Time, the world’s leading expert on arterial inflammation, the most powerful contributor after cholesterol to heart attacks. Spelke helped show how infants can connect what they see with what they hear. Wilson “has produced a scientific masterpiece in nearly every decade of his life,” writes Michael J. Novacek, provost and curator of paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Time’s five-part America’s Best monthly series is designed to be the definitive list of people who stand for the best in America today. “It’s about excellence: how we define it today, how a person achieves it, and how it changes our society,” says Deputy Managing Editor Steve Koepp. A distinguished panel of scientific advisers helped Time’s editors narrow their list of 100 in science and medicine to 18.

Time tells their stories in the magazine, and online through animated graphics, photos, and video on a joint site developed by TIME.com and CNN.com. Visit http://www.time.com or http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/americasbest/index.science.html/.