Nine Women Academics Elected to the American Philosophical Society

The American Philosophical Society was founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin. The society honors distinguished scientists, social scientists, humanities scholars, artists, and societal leaders with membership in the society. More than 240 members of the APS have won Nobel prizes. Members have included George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Frost, Thomas Edison, Sandra Day O’Connor, Charles Darwin, Toni Morrison, and Albert Einstein.

This year 34 new members were elected to the society. Of these, 27 are Americans and seven new members are from foreign countries. Of the 27 new American members, 10 are women. Nine of the 10 women selected have current ties to the academic world.

(L to R) Danielle S. Allen, Vicki L. Chandler, and Joanne Chory

Danielle S. Allen is the UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In July she will be joining the faculty at Harvard University as a professor of government. Professor Allen will also serve as director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at the university. Professor Allen is a summa cum laude graduate of Princeton University where she majored in the classics. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in the classics from Cambridge University. In addition, she has a master’s degree and Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. Her most recent book is Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality (Liveright, 2014).

Vicki L. Chandler is the chief program office for science at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. In this position, she regularly reviews grant proposals from colleges and universities, as well as nongovernmental organizations. Dr. Chandler is also the president of the American Genetics Society. Dr. Chandler has served on the faculty at the University of Oregon and the University of Arizona. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, San Francisco.

Joanne Chory holds the Howard H. and Maryam R. Newman Chair in Plant Biology at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. There, she is also the director of the Plant Biology Laboratory. Dr. Chory is a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio. She holds a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Illinois.

(L to R) Claudia Goldin, Linda Gordon, and Maryam Mirzakhani

Claudia Goldin is the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University and an associate editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics. She is the author of several books including Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women (Oxford University Press, 1990). Professor Goldin is a graduate of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Linda Gordon is University Professor of the Humanities and professor of history at New York University. She is the author of several books including The Moral Property of Women: The History of Birth Control Politics in America (University of Illinois Press, 2003). Professor Gordon has been on the NYU faculty since 1999. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Professor Gordon holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in history from Yale University.

Maryam Mirzakhani is a professor of mathematics at Stanford University. In 2014, she was the first woman to earn the Fields Medal, considered by many to be the “Noble Prize of Mathematics.” The Fields Medal has been awarded since 1936. Professor Mirzakhani has served on the Stanford faculty since 2008. Earlier, she taught at Princeton University. She is a graduate of the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran, and earned a Ph.D. at Harvard University.

(L to R) Margaret Murnane, Anne Walters Robertson, and Rosanna Warren

Margaret Murnane is a Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her research is focused on ultrafast lasers and x-ray science. Dr. Murnane earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at University College in Cork, Ireland. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

Anne Walters Robertson is the Claire Dux Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Music and the Humanities at the University of Chicago. She currently serves as chair of the department of music at the university. Earlier in her career at the University of Chicago, Dr. Robertson was deputy provost for research and education. She holds a Ph.D. from Yale University.

Rosanna Warren is the Hanna Holborn Gray Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. Her most recent book of poems is Ghost in a Red Hat (W. W. Norton & Co., 2011). She is also the author of a book of literary criticism, Fables of the Self: Studies in Lyric Poetry (W.W. Norton & Co., 2008). Professor Warren joined the faculty at the University of Chicago in 2012. She is a graduate of Yale University and holds a master’s degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.