McCartney Elected to AAAS

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies, announced today that Dean Kathleen McCartney has been elected as a member.

“It is an honor to be elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,” McCartney said. “I look forward to working with members of the academy on society’s most pressing issues, including making U.S. education more equitable for all learners. Membership in the academy is a call to service that I accept with enthusiasm.”

McCartney is one of 220 of the world’s most accomplished leaders from academia, business, public affairs, the humanities, and the arts to be elected in 2012. Members contribute to academy publications and studies of science and technology policy, energy and global security, social policy and American institutions, the humanities and culture, and education.

“Election to the academy is both an honor for extraordinary accomplishment and a call to serve,” said Academy President Leslie C. Berlowitz. “We look forward to drawing on the knowledge and expertise of these distinguished men and women to advance solutions to the pressing policy challenges of the day.”

Members of the 2012 class include winners of the National Medal of Science; the Lasker Award; the Pulitzer and the Shaw prizes; the Fields Medal; MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships; the Kennedy Center Honors; Grammy, Emmy, Academy, and Tony awards; and the Avery Fisher Prize. The new class will be inducted at a ceremony on October 6 at the academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.

Since its founding in 1780, the academy has elected leading “thinkers and doers” from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin 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 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.