45 Women Academics Named Fellows of American Academy of Arts & Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) recently announced the selection of 204 new members, including 16 foreign fellows. Membership in the academy is offered to leaders in the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, arts, business, public affairs and the nonprofit sectors.

The academy was founded in 1780. Members have included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Margaret Meade and Martin Luther King Jr. The current membership of more than 4,600 fellows includes more than 250 Nobel Prize winners.

Through an analysis of the list of new fellows conducted by WIAReport, it appears that 54 of the 188 new American members of the AAAS are women. Thus, women make up only 28.7 percent of the new members of the academy. This is up from 23.2 percent a year ago.

It appears that 45 of the 54 new women members from the United States have ties to academia. Here are brief biographies of these women.

Joanna Aizenberg is the Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials Science in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Harvard University. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Moscow and a Ph.D. degree in structural biology from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

Catherine L. Albanese is the J. F. Rowny Professor Emerita in Comparative Religions & Research Professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Susan C. Alberts is a professor of biology at Duke University. She is a graduate of Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and holds a master’s degree from UCLA and a Ph.D. in ecology and evolution from the University of Chicago.

Dora E. Angelaki is the Wilhelmina Robertson Professor at the Baylor University College of Medicine in Houston. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota.

Neta A. Bahcall is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Astrophysics at Princeton University. She earned a Ph.D. in astrophysics at the University of Tel Aviv in Israel.

Deborah Loewenberg Ball is the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Dean of the School of Education at the University of Michigan. She holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees, all from Michigan State University.

Nancy Bonini is a professor of biology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of Princeton University and holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Janet M. Currie is the Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Public Affairs and director of the Center for Health and Well-Being at Princeton University. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton.

Linda Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. Professor Darling-Hammond is a graduate of Yale University and holds a doctorate in urban education from Temple University in Philadelphia.

Johanna Ruth Drucker is the Bernard and Martin Breslauer Professor of Bibliographical Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles. She is internationally known for her work in the history of graphic design.

Katherine Theresa Faber is the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University. She is a graduate of Alfred University in New York and holds a master’s degree from Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. in materials science from the University of California at Berkeley.

Margaret W. Ferguson is a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of California at Davis and is the president of the Modern Language Association. A graduate of Cornell University, she earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Yale University.

Inez Fung is a professor of atmospheric science at the University of California at Berkeley. She earned a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg is the William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Economics at Yale University and editor-in-chief of the American Economic Review. She is a graduate of the University of Freiburg in Germany and holds a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.

Patricia Marks Greenfield is a Distinguished Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles. She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Linda Gregerson is the Caroline Walker Bynum Distinguished University Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan. Professor Gregerson is a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio. She holds master’s degrees from Northwestern University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a Ph.D. in English from Stanford University.

Susan D. Gubar is Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Department of English at Indiana University in Bloomington. She is a graduate of the City University of New York and holds a master’s degree from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa.

Helen Hardacre is the Reischauer Institute Professor of Japanese Religions and Society at Harvard University. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and earned a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago.

Fiona Anne Harrison is the Benjamin M. Rosen Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College and holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Amy Hempel is a senior lecturer in the department of English at Harvard University. Her numerous short stories can be found in The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel (Scribner, 2006). 

Vicki C. Jackson is the Thurgood Marshall Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School. She is the author of Constitutional Engagement in a Transnational Era (Oxford University Press, 2009).

Mary C. Kelley is the Ruth Bordin Collegiate Professor in American Culture at the University of Michigan. She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and earned a master’s degree at New York University and a Ph.D. at the University of Iowa.

Ellen D. Ketterson is a Distinguished Professor of biology and gender studies at Indiana University. She earned her doctorate at Indiana University and conducted postdoctoral research at Washington State University.

Daphene Koller is a professor of computer science at Stanford University. She graduated from Hebrew University in Jerusalem at the age of 17. Professor Koller earned a Ph.D. at Stanford and joined the university’s faculty in 1995.

Leslie Anne Leinwand is the chief scientific officer of the BioFrontiers Institute and professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is a graduate of Cornell University and holds a Ph.D. from Yale University.

Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University. She is also a staff writer for The New York Times. Dr. Lepore is a graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. She earned a master’s degree at the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in American studies at Yale University. Her latest published work is Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013).

Ann Marie Lipinski is a journalist and the curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. She is the former editor of the Chicago Tribune and vice president for civic engagement at the University of Chicago.

M. Christina Marchetti is the William R. Kenan Professor of Physics at Syracuse University in New York. She is a graduate of University of Pavia in Italy and holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Florida.

Paula D. McClain is a professor of political science and public policy and dean of the Graduate School at Duke University. Dr. McClain holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in political science, all from Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Sabeeha Merchant is a professor of biochemistry at the University of California at Los Angeles. She earned a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ruth Garrett Millikan is a professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Millikan is a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio and holds a Ph.D. from Yale University.

Susan L. Naquin is a professor emerita of history and East Asian studies at Princeton University. Dr. Naquin is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a master’s degree in East Asian studies and a Ph.D. in history from Yale University.

Elizabeth Jean Reitz is a professor of anthropology at the University of Georgia. She has taught at the university since 1979. Professor Reitz holds bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. degrees in anthropology from the University of Florida.

Amy C. Rosenzweig is a professor of chemistry and a professor of molecular bioscience at Northwestern University. She is a graduate of Amherst College in Massachusetts and holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mary Klevjord Rothbart is an emerita distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Oregon. She is the author of Becoming Who We Are: Temperament and Personality in Development (Guilford Press, 2011).

Mary Jo Salter is the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor in the Writing Seminars faculty at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She previously taught at Mount Holyoke College for 23 years. She is author of seven books of poetry including her most recent work, Nothing by Design (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013).

Londa L. Schiebinger is the John L. Hinds Professor of History of Science in the history department at Stanford University. She is a graduate of the University of Nebraska and holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University.

M. Celeste Simon is a professor of cell and developmental biology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of Miami University in Ohio and holds a master’s degree from Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Rockefeller University.

Elaine Sisman is the Anne Parsons Bender Professor of Music at Columbia University in New York City. She has been on the Columbia University faculty since 1982. Professor Sisman earned at doctorate in music history at Princeton University.

Gigliola Staffilani is a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Bologna in Italy and Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago.

Sarah Elizabeth Thomas is vice president for the Harvard Library. She is a graduate of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and holds a master’s degree from Simmons College in Boston, and a Ph.D. in German from Johns Hopkins University.

Sherry R. Turkle is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the founder and current director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. Professor Turkle received a joint doctorate in sociology and personality psychology from Harvard University.

Diana H. Wall is a professor of biology and director of the School of Global Environmental Sustainability at Colorado State University. She holds a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. in plant pathology from the University of Kentucky.

Rachel I. Wilson is a professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. Her research is focused on understanding how sensory information is processed by neural circuits.

Amanda Woodward is the William S. Gray Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago.  She completed her undergraduate degree at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and her doctoral degree at Stanford University.