Academy Announces 2006 Class of Fellows
Those Elected Include Scholars, Scientists,
Artists, Civic, Corporate and Philanthropic Leaders
April 24, 2006
CAMBRIDGE, MA - The American Academy of Arts
and Sciences today announced the election of 175 new Fellows and 20 new Foreign
Honorary Members. Those elected include two former presidents of the United
States; the Chief Justice of the United States; a Nobel laureate; winners of
the Pulitzer Prize in poetry, drama, music, investigative reporting, and
non-fiction; a former US poet laureate; and a member of the French Senate.
The 195 scholars, scientists, artists, civic, corporate
and philanthropic leaders come from 24 states and 13 countries, and range in
age from 37 to 83. Represented among this year's newly elected members are more
than 60 universities, a dozen corporations, as well as museums, research
institutes, media outlets and foundations.
Those elected this year include former Presidents
George H.W. Bush and William Jefferson Clinton; Supreme Court Chief Justice
John Roberts; Nobel Prize-winning biochemist and Rockefeller University
President Sir Paul Nurse; the chairman and vice chairman of the 9/11
commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton; actor and director Martin Scorsese;
choreographer Meredith Monk; conductor Michael Tilson Thomas; and New York
Stock Exchange chairman Marshall Carter along with leading scientists and
scholars from across the nation.
The newly elected class also includes: Elbert Rutan,
designer and constructor of the Voyager, the first vehicle to circumnavigate
the earth without refueling and other renowned experimental aircraft; Charles
Thacker, designer of the world's first personal computer workstation; William
Greenough of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, whose research
provided the first clear evidence for the structural basis of memory; Michael
Dawson, University of Chicago political scientist who has authored influential
studies of race and politics in the United States; Stanford law professor
Lawrence Lessig, who is a leading expert on the legal and social consequences
of the information revolution; Bancroft Prize-winning historian William Cronon;
National Book Award-winning author Xuefei Jin; former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita
Dove; Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel; Los Angeles Times editor
Dean Baquet; and New Yorker editor David Remnick; and Kenneth Chenault,
Chairman and CEO of the American Express Company.
Foreign Honorary Members in this year's class come from
Europe, Asia, South America and the Middle East, and include former French
Minister of Justice and current member of the French Senate, Robert Badinter;
National University of Singapore President Shih Choon Fong; Japanese ecologist
Yoh Iwasa; Ecuadorian biologist and Galapagos Islands champion Eugenia Del Pino
Veintimilla; British author and playwright William Trevor; and Henri Loyrette,
president and director of the Louvre Museum in Paris. 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.
"It gives me great pleasure to welcome these
outstanding leaders in their fields to the Academy," 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."
The Academy will welcome this year's new class at its
annual Induction Ceremony on October 7, at the Academy's headquarters in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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.
The list of Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members with
their affiliations at the time of election:
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