Ten appointed members of American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Nine faculty members and a Yale trustee will be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and independent policy research centers.

Nine faculty members and a Yale trustee will be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and independent policy research centers. 

They are among 190 new fellows and 22 foreign honorary members elected April 28 to the Class of 2008. The new members are considered leaders in the field of science, the arts and humanities, business, public affairs and the non-profit sector.

Those honored this year are (in alphabetical order):

Mel Bochner, professor (adjunct) of prinmaking and painting, Yale School of Art. An artist based in New York City, Bochner has exhibited widely in the United States and Europe, and his work is represented in the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris.

Michael Donoghue, the John G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and director of Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History. Donoghue, who also has appointments in the Department of Geology and Geophysics and the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, does research revolving around understanding phylogeny (i.e., the relationship of all organisms on the Tree of Life), with particlar emphasis on plant diversity and evolution.

Stathis N. Kalyvas, the Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science, director of the Program on Order, Conflict and Violence and co-director of the Hellenic Studies Program. Kalyvas focuses his research on the dynamics and polarization of civil war, ethnic and non-ethnic violence, and the formation of collective identities centered on religion, class and ethnicity.

Indra Nooyi, chief executive officer, PepsiCo Inc. A 1980 graduate of the Yale School of Management, Nooyi was named a successor trustee of the Yale Corporation in 2002. As head of PepsiCo Inc., she heads one of the world’s largest convenient food and beverage companies.

David L. Quint, Sterling Professor of English and Comparative Literature. Quint is a specialist in European Renaissance literature and culture, whose fields of study include classical and Renaissance heroic poetry and their influence on the epics of Milton and Spenser, Renaissance drama, and the literature and legacy of Italian humanism.

Reva B. Siegel, the Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor of Law, Yale Law School. Siegel is a specialist in constitutional law and anti-discrimination law. Her writing draws on legal history to explore questions of law and inequality, and to analyze how courts interact with representative government and popular movements in interpreting the Constitution.

Susan C. Stokes, the John S. Saden Professor of Political Science and director of the Yale Program on Democracy. Stokes is a leading scholar of Latin American politics, who has explored such topics as new democracies, neoliberalism, political parties, economic reform, vote-buying, and political patronage and clientelism — particularly on how they relate to Latin American countries.

David Swensen, chief investment officer and professor (adjunct) at the Yale School of Management. A former Wall Street investor, Swensen is responsible for Yale’s more than $22.5 billion in endowment assets and other investment funds. He is the author of “Pioneering Portfolio Management: An Unconventional Approach to Institutional Investment” and “A Fundamental Ap–proach to Personal Investment.”

Alan Trachtenberg, the Neil Gray Jr. Professor of English and American Studies, Emeritus. In his writings, Trachtenberg has explored the American culture and literature in the 19th and 20th centuries, with special emphasis on the effects of urbanism. His works include “Shades of Hiawatha: Staging Indians, Making Americans, 1880-1930,” “Reading American Photographs: Images as History, Mathew Brady to Walker Evans” and “Brooklyn Bridge: Fact and Symbol.”

Megan C. Urry, the Israel Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy, chair of the Department of Physics and director of the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics. Urry’s scientific research concerns active galaxies — i.e., galaxies with unusually luminous cores powered by very massive black holes. She has also won widespread acclaim for her efforts to expand the options for and increase the number of women and minorities in the physical sciences.

The AAAS was founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and other scholar-patriots. The academy undertakes studies of complex and emerging problems through interdisciplinary, long-term policy research. Its members include influential leaders from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the 20th. The current membership includes some 200 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.

Other new members this year include Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens; filmmakers Milos Forman, Pedro Almodóvar and the Coen brothers; former Secretary of State James Baker; and business entrepreneurs Michael Dell and Jeff Immelt.

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Dorie Baker: dorie.baker@yale.edu, 203-432-1345