Yale Bulletin and Calendar

May 7, 2004|Volume 32, Number 29|Two-Week Issue

Eight Yale professors elected fellows of American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Eight members of the Yale faculty have been named fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), the oldest learned society in the United States.

The newly elected fellows are Richard H. Brodhead, Donald Max Engelman, Paul A. Fleury, Steven M. Girvin, Michael J. Graetz, Susan Hockfield, Wayne Meeks and Stephen Skowronek.

This year, the AAAS named 178 new fellows and 24 new foreign honorary members, all of whom are world-renowned leaders in scholarship, business, the arts and public affairs. Election to the AAAS has been considered one of the highest honors in the United States, since the organization was founded in 1780 by John Adams and other scholar-patriots "to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity and happiness of a free, independent and virtuous people." The current membership of more than 4,500 includes over 150 Nobel laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners.

Brief profiles of the new Yale members follow:

Richard H. Brodhead

Richard H. Brodhead is the dean of Yale College and the A. Bartlett Giamatti Professor of English and American Studies. He joined the faculty of Yale in 1972 after earning his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Yale. He has written widely on Hawthorne, Melville, Henry James, Faulkner, Stowe, Louisa May Alcott, Richard Wright and Eudora Welty, and edited the journal of Charles W. Chesnutt, the principal African-American author of the post-Civil War generation. He became dean in 1992, and in that position he has had oversight of undergraduate education and faculty appointments and has policy responsibilities in such areas as admissions, financial aid, student services and student life. Brodhead had a major role in opening undergraduate admissions to students from around the world and extending need-based financial aid on a global basis. He also chaired a review of undergraduate education that made major recommendations for curriculum change. He will become president of Duke University on July 1.

Donald Max Engleman

Donald Max Engleman, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, uses X-ray diffraction, neutron scattering, electron microscopy, optical spectroscopy and biochemical methods to determine how the primary sequences of membrane proteins determine their three-dimensional structures, and how they function. After receiving his undergraduate degree in physics from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, he earned his M.S. and Ph.D. from Yale. A member of the Yale faculty since 1970, Engelman served as acting dean of Yale College for the 1992-1993 academic year. As chair of the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, he helped plan and oversee the early construction phases for the Perry R. Bass Center for Molecular and Structural Biology. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. His awards and honors include fellowships from the National Institutes of Health and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Paul A. Fleury

Paul A. Fleury, dean of engineering, is the Frederick William Beinecke Professor of Engineering and Applied Physics. He joined the Yale faculty in 2000, after serving as dean of the School of Engineering at the University of New Mexico and working for 30 years at AT&T Bell Laboratories. At Yale he has been a catalyst to the emergence of engineering as a cohesive link between the physical and biomedical sciences. He has a doctorate in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, holds five patents and has authored more than 130 scientific publications. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences, and has received awards from the American Physical Society for his research on optical phenomena in condensed matter systems. He has served on many national governmental and corporate advisories and is currently a member of the board of Brookhaven Science Associates and committees for Lawrence Berkeley, Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories.

Steven M. Girvin

Steven M. Girvin, professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Physics and Applied Physics, is a theoretical physicist who studies the quantum mechanics of large collections of atoms, molecules and electrons in superconductors, magnets and transistors and the barriers to building a practical quantum computer. He made crucial contributions to the theory of the quantum Hall effect and quantum phase transitions. His work expands the understanding of connections between the microscopic quantum world and the macroscopic classical world of everyday experience. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and in 1997-1998 served as chair of the Institute for Theoretical Physics advisory board.

Michael J. Graetz

Michael J. Graetz is the Justus S. Hotchkiss Professor of Law. A specialist in taxation, health law and income security law and policy, he is the author of "Federal Income Taxation: Principles and Policies," "The Decline (and Fall?) of the Income Tax," "The U.S. Income Tax," "True Security-Rethinking American Social Insurance" (with J. Mashaw), "Federal Income Taxation: Principles and Policies" and "Foundations of International Income Taxation." His articles have appeared in the law reviews of Columbia, Duke, Emory, Harvard and Yale. From 1969 to 1972, he worked in the U.S. Treasury Department and held a post in the Office of Tax Legislative Counsel.

Susan Hockfield

Susan Hockfield, provost of Yale University, is the William Edward Gilbert Professor of Neurobiology and former dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. A member of the Yale faculty since 1985, she has focused her research on the development of the mammalian brain and the progression of the deadly glioma type of brain tumor. She has written more than 90 scientific publications and is the primary author of the book "Molecular Probes of the Nervous System: Selected Methods for Antibodies and Nucleic Acid Probes." Her dedication to improving graduate education in the biological and biomedical sciences is reflected in her appointment as dean of the Yale Graduate School in 1998, and her role in the development of the Yale Biological and Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program. She currently serves on the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council of the National Institutes of Health and other advisory boards. Her memberships in professional societies include the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Society for Neuroscience.

Wayne Meeks

Wayne Meeks is the Woolsey Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies. In 1995, his colleagues honored him with a festschrift, "The Social World of the First Christians, Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks," edited by L. Michael White and O. Larry Yarbrough. He was named a corresponding fellow of the British Academy in 1992, and was granted an honorary doctorate in theology from the University of Uppsala in 1990. His books include "The Origins of Christian Morality: The First Two Centuries," "The Moral World of the First Christians" and "The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul," which has been published in Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Italian and Portuguese, and won the Biblical Archaeology Review Award for Best Book on the New Testament as well as the American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence.

Stephen Skowronek

Stephen Skowronek is the Pelatiah Perit Professor of Political and Social Science. His research concerns American national institutions and American political history, with a special focus on the presidency. He has been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and has held the chair in American Civilization at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. His publications include "Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877-1920" and "The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton." He is a managing editor of the journal Studies in American Political Development.

The AAAS will welcome this year's new fellows at its annual induction ceremony in October at the AAAS headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A reception was held at Yale on May 19 to honor the new Yale fellows and the current fellows of the AAAS, the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Alpern named as new medical school dean

Sixteen honored for strengthening town-gown ties

Author Fadiman named first Francis Writer in Residence

Yale counselor helped ease grief of war-torn families in Kosovo and Iraq

Media failed to 'connect the dots' before 9/11, journalist says

With a hoisting of tentacles, giant squid returns to Peabody

Alumni delegates explore issues . . .

Threatened nation-state is topic of two-day YCIAS conference

Event showcasing medical students' original research . . .

New center offers treatment for primary immunodeficiencies

The letters of literary figures are featured in Beinecke exhibit

In elderly, recovery from injuries often good . . .

Study: For-profit hospices offer fewer services than non-profits

Chemotherapy agent called cisplatin effectively transmits . . .

Scientists learn more about bond of water molecules, protons

New fund will support YSN faculty's initiatives to improve health care

Juniors are recognized for scholarship and character

'Modernist Voices' will explore themes in American and British literature

Dr. Terri Fried lauded for her work in geriatric patient care and research

Event explores new advances in chemical biology

Yale Books in Brief

Campus Notes