News & Announcements
April 30, 2007
"American Academy of Arts & Sciences Elects John Goldsmith, CI Executive Committee Member, to the 2007 Class of Fellows"
Author: American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Those Elected Include Scholars, Scientists, Artists, Civic, Corporate and Philanthropic Leaders
April 30, 2007
CAMBRIDGE, MA - The American Academy of Arts and Sciences today announced the election of 203 new Fellows and 24 new Foreign Honorary Members. Those elected include a former Vice President of the United States; a former Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court; the mayor of New York City; winners of Nobel and Academy Awards and the Pulitzer Prize; corporate CEOs; and two former chairs of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors.
The 227 scholars, scientists, artists, civic, corporate and philanthropic leaders come from 27 states and 13 countries, and range in age from 36 to 92. Represented among this year’s newly elected members are 70 universities, including seven presidents or chancellors; more than a dozen corporations; as well as museums, research institutes, media outlets and foundations.
This year’s new Fellows include former Vice President Albert Gore, Jr.; former Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor; New York Mayor and businessman Michael Bloomberg; Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt; New York Times investigative correspondent James Risen; filmmaker Spike Lee; economists Gregory Mankiw and Murray Weidenbaum; astronomer Donald Brownlee; robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks; Pixar Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter; supercomputer expert David Shaw; pianist Emanuel Ax; historian Nell Painter; former White House official and Berkeley Law Dean Christopher Edley; classicist Sabine MacCormack; and international public health leader Allan Rosenfield.
Foreign Honorary Members in this year’s class come from Europe, Asia, Canada, and the Middle East, and include Italian glassblower Lino Tagliapietra; Israeli biochemist and Nobel laureate Avram Hershko; French literary scholar Tzvetan Todorov; Pritzker Prize-winning Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas; and Canadian Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella.
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 Emilio Bizzi. “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 6, 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 Benjamin 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.
