American Academy of Arts and Sciences to Induct 231st Class of Members

Weekend events include panel discussions on the Constitution (with retired Associate Supreme Court Justice David Souter) and the American Military (with Maj. Gen. Gregg Martin,  Commandant, U.S. Army War College)

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 28, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- One hundred-eighty of the nation's most influential artists, scientists, scholars, authors, and institutional leaders will be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences at a ceremony here on Saturday, October 1.

Founded in 1780, the American Academy is one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious learned societies, and an independent research center that draws from its members' expertise to conduct studies in science and technology policy, global security, the humanities and culture, social policy, and education.

"Induction recognizes extraordinary individual achievement and marks a commitment on the part of new members to provide fundamental, non-partisan knowledge for addressing today's complex challenges," said American Academy President Leslie C. Berlowitz.

The 231st Class of the Academy includes winners of Nobel, Pritzker, and Pulitzer prizes; the Turing Award; MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships; Kennedy Center Honors; and Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy awards. Foreign Honorary Members from Argentina, India, Israel, Japan, and the United Kingdom will also be inducted.

Participants in the ceremony will include: groundbreaking researcher and biologist Frances Arnold of the California Institute of Technology; author and literary critic Denis Donoghue, University Professor and the Henry James Professor of English and American Letters at New York University; Rachel Hadas, renowned poet, essayist, and the Board of Governors Professor of English at Rutgers University; Hollywood film producer Kathleen Kennedy; Will Miller, President of the Wallace Foundation; David Page, renowned geneticist and Director of the Whitehead Institute at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Annette Gordon-Reed, Harvard University historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family;" and Sir Adam Roberts, President of the British Academy and one of the foremost experts on international strategic affairs.

New members scheduled to attend the Induction include, in the humanities and the arts: novelist Oscar Hijuelos; Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro; singer-songwriter Paul Simon; novelist and short story writer Luisa Valenzuela; and landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh.

In the sciences: groundbreaking cancer researcher Clara Bloomfield, who proved that adult acute leukemia can be cured; Julio Frenk, former Minister of Health for Mexico and  Dean of the Faculty at Harvard School of Public Health; and Nobel laureate and chemist Ei-Ichi Negishi.

In the social sciences: Anthony Bryk, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; Russian studies scholar Timothy Colton; sociologist Claude Fischer, whose research illuminates social networks in urban settings; Nancy Foner, an influential scholar of the American immigrant experience; macroeconomist Monika Piazzesi; and Roberta Ramo, the first woman to serve as president of the American Bar Association.

In public affairs, civic leadership, philanthropy and business: veteran diplomat Edward Djerejian; Wanda Austin (Aerospace Corporation); Hugh Grant (Monsanto Company); Robert Haas (Levi Strauss & Company); Robert Kraft (New England Patriots and The Kraft Group); and Robert Reischauer (Urban Institute).

College and university presidents include: Francisco Cigarroa (University of Texas); Linda Katehi (University of California, Davis); Joseph Klafter (Tel Aviv University); Steven Knapp (George Washington University); David Skorton (Cornell University); and Debora Spar (Barnard College).

Weekend events also include a Friday gallery tour and reception at the Museum of Fine Arts with new Academy members Malcolm Rogers, director of the MFA, and installation artist Jenny Holzer; and two panel discussions on Sunday, Oct. 2: "The Constitution, the Practice of Democracy, and Unintended Consequences," with David Souter, retired Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; Heather Gerken, the J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law at Yale Law School; Geoffrey Stone, the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago Law School; and Mickey Edwards, Vice President of the Aspen Institute and former member of Congress; and "The American Military and American Democracy," with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David M. Kennedy; Lt. Gen. Thomas Bostick, senior Army officer for personnel and manpower policy; and Maj. Gen. Gregg Martin, Commandant of the U.S. Army War College.

Since its founding by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other scholar-patriots, the American Academy has elected leading "thinkers and doers" from each generation. The current membership includes more than 250 Nobel laureates, some 100 Pulitzer Prize winners, and many of the world's most celebrated artists and performers.

SOURCE American Academy of Arts & Sciences