Three MIT faculty members -- two acclaimed labor economists and an expert in chemical sensors for explosives detection -- were elected fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on Monday, April 24.
The new MIT fellows are Daron Acemoglu, professor of economics; Joshua Angrist, professor of economics; and Timothy Swager, department head and John D. MacArthur Professor of Chemistry. They will be honored at an induction ceremony on Saturday, Oct. 7, at the academy's headquarters in Cambridge.
Academy fellows are "outstanding leaders in their fields, selected through a highly competitive process that recognizes individuals who have made preeminent contributions to their disciplines and to society at large," said academy President Patricia Meyer Spacks.
The 2006 MIT inductees were among 175 new fellows and 20 new foreign honorary members. This year's new fellows include former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton; 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; and actor and director Martin Scorsese.
Fellows and foreign honorary members are nominated and elected to the academy by current members.
Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and others, the academy has elected as fellows and foreign honorary members influential leaders from each generation, including George Washington and Ben Franklin in the 18th century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the 20th. The current membership includes more than 170 Nobel laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 26, 2006 (download PDF).
