News Features & Releases

Harris Elected to the Norwegian Academy of Arts and Sciences

May 12, 2006

Thomas Professor Paul Harris been elected to the Norwegian Academy of Arts and Sciences. Harris is one of six foreign members to be elected to the academy this year, which also includes a total of 183 foreign members and 219 Norwegian members. Election occurs after a nomination and endorsement by fellow colleagues.

"I'm proud to be recognized in Scandinavian countries where some of my collaborators have been working," Harris said.

Harris scholarship focuses on the early development of cognition, emotion, and imagination. His most recent book, The Work of the Imagination, gathers together several years of research carried out at Oxford University, where he earned his Ph.D. and taught developmental psychology. Currently, he is exploring whether children rely on their own firsthand observation or alternatively trust what other people tell them. He is also conducting research on children's mental and emotional states.

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, founded in 1857, is a non-governmental, nationwide, and interdisciplinary body which embraces all fields of learning. It provides a national forum of communication within and between the various learned disciplines, and it represents Norwegian science in foreign academies and international organizations.