Campus & Community

Thirteen Harvard scholars elected to AAAS

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The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the nation’s pre-eminent learned society and research institution, announced earlier this week its newly elected fellows and foreign honorary members. Members of this year’s class – composed of 177 fellows and 30 foreign honorary members – were honored for their achievements in fields ranging from mathematics to medicine, from computer science to literary criticism, and from public affairs to the performing arts. Thirteen members of Harvard’s faculty have been elected to join the 2002 class.

The following members of the Harvard community have been elected to the Academy: Lawrence E. Sullivan, director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at the Divinity School; Steven Shavell, director of the Olin Center for Law Economics and Business at the Law School; Anne-Marie Slaughter, J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign and Comparative Law; Mark Charles Fishman, professor of medicine; Elliott Dan Kieff, Harriet Ryan Albee Professor of Medicine; Joseph Harris, Higgings Professor of Mathematics; Charles Lieber, Mark Hyman Jr. Professor of Chemistry; Bruce Michael Spiegelman, professor of cell biology; William L. Fash, Bowditch Professor of Central American and Mexican Archaeology and Ethnology; Ariel Pakes, professor of economics; Elizabeth J. Perry, Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government and director of the Fairbank Center; Katharine Park, the Samuel Zemurray Jr. and Doris Zemurray Stone Radcliffe Professor of the History of Science; and Reinhold Brinkmann, James Edward Ditson Professor of Music.

“The Academy is pleased to welcome these outstanding and influential individuals to the nation’s most illustrious learned society. Election to the American Academy is the result of a highly competitive process that recognizes those who have made pre-eminent contributions to all scholarly fields and professions,” said Academy President Patricia Meyer Spacks.

Leslie C. Berlowitz, the Academy’s executive officer, added, “Throughout its history, the Academy has gathered individuals with diverse perspectives to participate in studies and projects focusing on advancing intellectual thought and constructive action in American society.”

New fellows are nominated and elected by current members of the Academy. Members are divided into five distinct classes: mathematics and physics, biological sciences, social sciences, humanities and arts, and public affairs and business.

The Academy was founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other scholar-patriots “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Current membership includes more than 150 Nobel laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners. Drawing on the wide-ranging expertise of its membership, the Academy conducts thoughtful, innovative, nonpartisan studies on international security, social policy, education, and the humanities.

This year’s fellows will be welcomed at the annual induction ceremony at the Academy’s Cambridge headquarters on Oct. 5.