CAMBRIDGE, MA, April 26, 2005 – The American Academy of Arts and Sciences today announced the election of 196 new Fellows and 17 new Foreign Honorary Members. The 213 men and women are leaders in scholarship, business, the arts, and public affairs.
This year’s new Fellows include Nobel Prize-winning physicist Eric Cornell of the University of Colorado; Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist; Steven Squyres, leader of NASA’s Rover program for the exploration of Mars; Dante scholar and chairman emeritus of the National Humanities Center, Robert Hollander; sculptor and painter Jeff Koons; Academy Award-winning actor and director Sidney Poitier; choreographers Mark Morris and Judith Jamison; journalist Tom Brokaw; Washington Post Company CEO Donald Graham; Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page; Time, Inc., CEO Ann Moore; architect, sculptor, and designer of the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in Washington, Maya Lin; as well as four Pulitzer Prize winners – dramatist Horton Foote; playwright Tony Kushner; novelist Alison Lurie, and cartoonist Art Spiegelman.
The selection of Foreign Honorary Members honors distinguished experts and intellectuals from outside the United States. Past elected Foreign Honorary Members include Neils Bohr, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Albert Camus. This year’s class includes individuals from nine countries, including Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet, Wislawa Szymborska;Brenda Milner of the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University, one of the founders of cognitive neuroscience; and Jerusalem-based pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim, who has used his music to build bridges between Israeli and Palestinian society.
"It gives me great pleasure to welcome these outstanding leaders in their fields in this, the Academy’s 225th year," said Academy President Patricia Meyer Spacks. "Fellows are selected through a highly competitive process that recognizes individuals who have made preeminent contributions to their disciplines and to society at large."
"Throughout its history, the Academy has convened the leading thinkers of the day, from diverse perspectives, to participate in projects and studies that advance the public good," added Chief Executive Officer Leslie Berlowitz. "I am confident that this distinguished class of new Fellows will continue that tradition of cherishing knowledge and shaping the future."
Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members are nominated and elected to the Academy by current members. A broad-based membership, comprised of scholars and practitioners from mathematics, physics, biological sciences, social sciences, humanities and the arts, public affairs and business, gives the Academy a unique capacity to conduct a wide range of interdisciplinary studies and public policy research.
The Academy will welcome this year’s new Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members at its annual induction ceremony on October 8, at the Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The 2005 class of new Academy members continues a tradition of honoring intellectual achievement, leadership and creativity in all fields. Also among the newly elected members are E. J. Dionne, Jr., political columnist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution; Earl Powell III, director of the National Gallery of Art; Nancy Sabin Wexler of Columbia University, a leader in epidemiological research whose work advanced sound public policies in the area of genetic research; lawyer and civic leader Frederick A. O. Schwarz; urban planner, author and longtime champion of New York’s Central Park, Elizabeth Rogers; Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art; Janice Stein of the University of Toronto, pioneer in the fields of negotiation theory and international conflict management; William Baker, president and CEO of public television station WNET in New York; and William Bridges, inventor of the Argon laser.
Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and other scholar-patriots, 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 170 Nobel laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners. An independent policy research center, the Academy undertakes studies of complex and emerging problems. Current Academy research focuses on science and global security; social policy; the humanities and culture; and education. (www.amacad.org)
The list of Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members with their affiliations at the time of election:
This year’s new Fellows include Nobel Prize-winning physicist Eric Cornell of the University of Colorado; Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist; Steven Squyres, leader of NASA’s Rover program for the exploration of Mars; Dante scholar and chairman emeritus of the National Humanities Center, Robert Hollander; sculptor and painter Jeff Koons; Academy Award-winning actor and director Sidney Poitier; choreographers Mark Morris and Judith Jamison; journalist Tom Brokaw; Washington Post Company CEO Donald Graham; Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page; Time, Inc., CEO Ann Moore; architect, sculptor, and designer of the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in Washington, Maya Lin; as well as four Pulitzer Prize winners – dramatist Horton Foote; playwright Tony Kushner; novelist Alison Lurie, and cartoonist Art Spiegelman.
The selection of Foreign Honorary Members honors distinguished experts and intellectuals from outside the United States. Past elected Foreign Honorary Members include Neils Bohr, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Albert Camus. This year’s class includes individuals from nine countries, including Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet, Wislawa Szymborska;Brenda Milner of the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University, one of the founders of cognitive neuroscience; and Jerusalem-based pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim, who has used his music to build bridges between Israeli and Palestinian society.
"It gives me great pleasure to welcome these outstanding leaders in their fields in this, the Academy’s 225th year," said Academy President Patricia Meyer Spacks. "Fellows are selected through a highly competitive process that recognizes individuals who have made preeminent contributions to their disciplines and to society at large."
"Throughout its history, the Academy has convened the leading thinkers of the day, from diverse perspectives, to participate in projects and studies that advance the public good," added Chief Executive Officer Leslie Berlowitz. "I am confident that this distinguished class of new Fellows will continue that tradition of cherishing knowledge and shaping the future."
Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members are nominated and elected to the Academy by current members. A broad-based membership, comprised of scholars and practitioners from mathematics, physics, biological sciences, social sciences, humanities and the arts, public affairs and business, gives the Academy a unique capacity to conduct a wide range of interdisciplinary studies and public policy research.
The Academy will welcome this year’s new Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members at its annual induction ceremony on October 8, at the Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The 2005 class of new Academy members continues a tradition of honoring intellectual achievement, leadership and creativity in all fields. Also among the newly elected members are E. J. Dionne, Jr., political columnist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution; Earl Powell III, director of the National Gallery of Art; Nancy Sabin Wexler of Columbia University, a leader in epidemiological research whose work advanced sound public policies in the area of genetic research; lawyer and civic leader Frederick A. O. Schwarz; urban planner, author and longtime champion of New York’s Central Park, Elizabeth Rogers; Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art; Janice Stein of the University of Toronto, pioneer in the fields of negotiation theory and international conflict management; William Baker, president and CEO of public television station WNET in New York; and William Bridges, inventor of the Argon laser.
Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and other scholar-patriots, 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 170 Nobel laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners. An independent policy research center, the Academy undertakes studies of complex and emerging problems. Current Academy research focuses on science and global security; social policy; the humanities and culture; and education. (www.amacad.org)
The list of Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members with their affiliations at the time of election: