Four Yale University professors were recently elected Fellows to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences class of 2003. The newly-elected Fellows are Michel H. Devoret, professor of physics and applied physics; Donald P. Green, A. Whitney Griswold professor of political science, professor of psychology and director of the Institute for Social and Policy Studies; Peter B. Moore, Sterling professor of chemistry and molecular biophysics and biochemistry; and Edward F. Zigler, founder of Head Start, Sterling Professor of Psychology, director of the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy, Sterling Professor of the Leslie C. Berlowitz, the Academy’s Executive Officer, added, “The American Academy is unique among academies for its breadth and scope. 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 the past year, the Academy has focused on issues from advancing the humanities relevance in American society to analyzing the cost of war in Iraq. We know that this year’s Fellows will continue in the Academy’s tradition of cherishing knowledge.”
Among this year’s new Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members are Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations; journalist Walter Cronkite; philanthropist William H. Gates, Sr., co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; novelist Michael Cunningham; recording industry pioneer Ray Dolby; artist Cindy Sherman; and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Donald Glaser.
The selection of Foreign Honorary Members continues the tradition of honoring distinguished experts and intellectuals from outside the United States whose work complements the values of the American Academy. Niels Bohr, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Albert Camus were among past elected Foreign Honorary Members. This year’s class includes conductor Helmuth Rilling, founder of the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart; Anthony Kenny, former Master of Balliol College at the University of Oxford; and Lloyd Axworthy, formerly Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.
New Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members 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 unique structure of the American Academy allows members to conduct interdisciplinary studies that draw on the range of academic and intellectual disciplines.
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.” The Academy has elected as Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members the finest minds and most influential leaders from each generation, including George Washington and Ben 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 150 Nobel laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners.
A full list of new members is available on the Academy website at http://www.amacad.org/news/new2003.htm. The Academy will welcome this year’s new Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members at the annual Induction Ceremony at the Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts in October.
