American Academy of Arts and Sciences Announces 2011 Class of Members

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 19, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Some of the world's most accomplished leaders from academia, business, public affairs, the humanities, and the arts have been elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

A list of the new Academy members announced today is located at: http://www.amacad.org/news/alphalist2011.pdf.

The 212 new members join one of the nation's most prestigious honorary societies and a leading center for independent policy research. Members contribute to Academy studies of science and technology policy, global security, social policy and American institutions, the humanities, and education.

"It is a privilege to honor these men and women for their extraordinary individual accomplishments," said Leslie Berlowitz, Academy President and William T. Golden Chair. "The knowledge and expertise of our members give the Academy a unique capacity – and responsibility – to provide practical policy solutions to the pressing challenges of the day. We look forward to engaging our new members in this work."

Among the 2011 class of scholars, scientists, writers, artists, civic, corporate, and philanthropic leaders are winners of the Nobel, Pulitzer, and Pritzker Prizes; the Turing Award; MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships; and Kennedy Center Honors, Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy awards.

Scientists among the newly elected Fellows include: astronomer Paul Butler, discoverer of over 330 planets; cancer researcher Clara Bloomfield, who proved that adult acute leukemia can be cured; public health specialist and former Mexican Minister of Health Julio Frenk; geographer Ellen Mosley-Thompson, who has led expeditions to Antarctica and Greenland; David Page, whose genome sequencing work has advanced understanding of human reproduction; theoretical computer scientists Avi Wigderson; and Nobel laureates Ei-Ichi Negish (chemistry) and H. David Politzer (physics).

Social scientists include: Anthony Bryk, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; Russian studies scholar Timothy Colton; sociologist Claude Fischer, whose research illuminated social networks in urban settings; Nancy Foner, an influential scholar of the American immigrant experience; macroeconomist Monika Piazzesi; Roberta Ramo, the first woman to serve as president of the American Bar Association; and political scientist Charles Stewart III, an expert in vote tabulation systems.

In the humanities and the arts, new members include: jazz icon Dave Brubeck; documentary filmmaker Ken Burns; actor Daniel Day-Lewis; ethnographic historian James Clifford; Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of books about Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings; playwright John Guare; novelist Oscar Hijuelos; conceptual artist Jenny Holzer; Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro; singer-songwriter Paul Simon; landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh; and actor Sam Waterston.

Among those elected to the Academy from public affairs and journalism are: veteran diplomat Edward Djerejian; former Congressional Budget Office Director Robert Reischauer; and former White House aid and CNN Chairman Thomas Johnson.

Business leaders in the 2011 class include: Wanda Austin (Aerospace Corporation); Hugh Grant (Monsanto Company); Robert Haas (Levi Strauss & Company); and Alan Mulally (Ford Motor Company).

Among educational, cultural, and foundation leaders in the new class are: Thomas Campbell, (Metropolitan Museum of Art); Francisco Cigarroa (University of Texas); Linda Katehi (University of California, Davis); Malcolm Rogers (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston); and David Skorton (Cornell University).

The Academy elected 16 Foreign Honorary Members from Argentina, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Peru; Portugal, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.

They include: University of Cambridge classicist Mary Beard; French poet Yves Bonnefoy; singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen; Joseph Klafter, President of Tel Aviv University; actor Helen Mirren; Angelika Neuwirth, a Berlin-based expert on the Qur'an and Islamic studies; Adam Roberts, President of the British Academy; financier David de Rothschild; Pritzker Prize-winning architect Eduardo Souto de Moura; and Nobel laureate writer Mario Vargas Llosa.  

The new class will be inducted at a ceremony on October 1, at the Academy's headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Since its founding in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other scholar-patriots, the Academy has elected leading "thinkers and doers" from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the eighteenth century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the nineteenth, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the twentieth. The current membership includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.

SOURCE American Academy of Arts & Sciences