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13 faculty members elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

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Thirteen MIT faculty members are among 220 leaders from academia, business, public affairs, the humanities and the arts elected as new members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academy announced today.

One of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies, the Academy is also a leading center for independent policy research. Members contribute to Academy publications and studies of science and technology policy, energy and global security, social policy and American institutions, the humanities and culture, and education.

Those elected from MIT this year are:
  • Robert Guy Griffin, professor of chemistry and director of the Francis Bitter National Magnet Laboratory;
  • Angela M. Belcher, the Germeshausen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Biological Engineering;
  • Emery N. Brown, professor of computational neuroscience and of health sciences and technology at MIT, and Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anaesthesia, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital;
  • Arvind, the Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Professor of Computer Science and Engineering;
  • Matthew A. Wilson, Sherman Fairchild Professor of Neuroscience and associate head for education in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences;
  • M. Frans Kaashoek, Charles Piper Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; associate director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL);
  • David Autor, professor of economics;
  • Bonnie Berger, professor of applied math and computer science;
  • Bjorn Mikhail Poonen, Claude E. Shannon (1940) Professor in Mathematics;
  • George Stephanopoulos, Arthur D. Little Professor of Chemical Engineering;
  • Stephen Yablo, professor of philosophy;
  • Amy Finkelstein, professor of economics; and
  • Tyler E. Jacks, director of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and David H. Koch Professor of Biology.
“Election to the Academy is both an honor for extraordinary accomplishment and a call to serve,” Academy President Leslie C. Berlowitz said in a statement. “We look forward to drawing on the knowledge and expertise of these distinguished men and women to advance solutions to the pressing policy challenges of the day.”

The new class will be inducted at a ceremony on Oct. 6 at the Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.

Since its founding in 1780, the Academy has elected leading “thinkers and doers” from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th century, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the 20th century. The current membership includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.

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