The American Philosophical Society is pleased to welcome new Members elected to the Society in 2024. Election to the American Philosophical Society honors extraordinary accomplishments in all fields. The APS is unusual among learned societies because its Membership is composed of top scholars from a wide variety of academic disciplines.
The following people have accepted membership into the American Philosophical Society.
CLASS 1: MATHEMATICAL & PHYSICAL SCIENCES
Dawn Bonnell
Henry Robinson Towne Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Senior Vice Provost for Research, School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Pennsylvania
Sharon Hammes-Schiffer
Professor of Chemistry, Princeton University
Wick C. Haxton
Distinguished Professor of Physics, University of California, Berkeley; Senior Faculty Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Professor Emeritus, University of Washington
Jon Kleinberg
Tisch University Professor, Cornell University
Jill Cornell Tarter
Bernard M. Oliver Endowed Chair Emeritus, SETI Institute
International
Ben L. Feringa
Jacobus H. van’t Hoff Distinguished Professor of Molecular Sciences, Professor of Organic Chemistry, University of Groningen; Academy Professor, Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences
CLASS 2: BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
William G. Kaelin
Sidney Farber Professor of Medicine, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Katalin Karikó
Professor, University of Szeged, Hungary; Adjunct Professor of Neurosurgery, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
Jonathan B. Losos
William H. Danforth Distinguished University Professor, Director, Living Earth Collaborative, Washington University, St. Louis
Eve Marder
Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfield Professor of Neuroscience, University Professor, Biology Department and Volen Center, Brandeis University
Christine Edry Seidman
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Thomas W. Smith Professor in Medicine and Genetics, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Director, Cardiovascular Genetics Center, Brigham & Women’s Hospital
Drew Weissman
Co-Director, Immunology Core, Penn Center for AIDS Research, Director of Vaccine Research, Infectious Diseases Division, Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
International
Andrew Balmford
Professor of Conservation Science, University of Cambridge
Dolph Schluter
University Killam Professor, University of British Columbia
CLASS 3: SOCIAL SCIENCES
Seyla Benhabib
Senior Research Scholar, Professor Adjunct of Law, Columbia Law School, Faculty Affiliate, Department of Philosophy, Senior Fellow, CCCT, Columbia University; Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy Emerita, Yale University
Frederick Cooper
Professor Emeritus of History, New York University
Daniel T. Gilbert
Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology, Harvard University
Michèle Lamont
Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies, Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies, Harvard University
Bryan Stevenson
Founder, Executive Director, Equal Justice Initiative; Lawyer and Social Justice Activist; Aronson Family Professor of Criminal Justice University Professor, New York University School of Law
CLASS 4: HUMANITIES
Gerald Lyn Early
Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters, Professor of African and African American Studies and English, Washington University in St. Louis
Patricia A. McAnany
Kenan Eminent Professor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
David Nirenberg
Director, Leon Levy Professor, Institute for Advanced Study
Carol J. Oja
William Powell Mason Professor of Music and Professor of American Studies, Harvard University
Ruth Scodel
D. R. Shackleton Bailey Collegiate Professor of Greek and Latin Emerita, University of Michigan
International
Rachel Bowlby
Professor of Comparative Literature Emeritus, University College London
Sandra Laugier
University Professor of Philosophy of Language, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
CLASS 5: THE ARTS, PROFESSIONS, AND LEADERS IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE AFFAIRS
Theodore (Ted) R. Aronson
Founding Partner, AJO and AJO Vista
Geraldine Brooks
Novelist
Michael M. Crow
Regents Distinguished President, Arizona State University
John E. Echohawk
Executive Director, Native American Rights Fund
John Anderson Fry
President, Drexel University
Danny O. Jacobs
President, Professor of Surgery, Oregon Health and Science University
Stacy L. Leeds
Willard H. Pedrick Dean and Regents Professor of Law, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University; Judge, Hualapai Tribe Court of Appeals; Judge, Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians Court of Appeals; Judge, Muscogee (Creek) Nation District Court
G. Gabrielle Starr
President, Philip C. and Gertrude L. McConnell Professor, Pomona College
Deborah Willis
University Professor, Chair, Department of Photography & Imaging, Tisch School of the Arts, Director, Institute for African American Affairs and the Center for Black Visual Culture, New York University
Thomas W. Wolf
Former Governor, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
International
Fintan O'Toole
Columnist and Critic, The Irish Times; Advising Editor and Frequent Commentator on U.S. Affairs, New York Review of Books; Author
About the American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States, was founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin for the purpose of “promoting useful knowledge.” The Society sustains its mission in four principal ways. It honors and engages distinguished scientists, humanists, social scientists, and leaders in civic and cultural affairs through elected membership and opportunities for interdisciplinary, intellectual fellowship, particularly in the semi-annual Meetings in Philadelphia. It supports research and discovery through grants and fellowships, lectures, publications, prizes, exhibitions, and public education. It serves scholars through a research library of some 13 million manuscripts and other collections internationally recognized for their enduring scholarly value. The American Philosophical Society’s current activities reflect the founder’s spirit of inquiry, provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas, and convey the conviction of its members that intellectual inquiry and critical thought are inherently in the public interest.
Early members included George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Marshall. The Russian Princess Dashkova, president of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, was elected in 1789 and was the Society's first female member. In the nineteenth century, John James Audubon, Robert Fulton, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, Maria Mitchell, and Louis Pasteur were among those elected. Hans Bethe, Willa Cather, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, John Hope Franklin, Robert Frost, George Marshall, Barbara McClintock, and Robert Merton hint at the scientific, humanistic, and public accomplishments of twentieth-century members.
Today the Society has 976 elected members, 818 resident members and 158 international members from more than two dozen foreign countries. Only 5,853 members have been elected since 1743; the Society generally elects fewer than thirty resident members annually. Since 1900, over 270 members have received the Nobel Prize.
New Member photo credits:
Early - WUSTL Public Affairs
Karikó - Istvaěn Sahin-Toěth
Laugier - Astrid di Crollalanza (c) Flammarion
Nirenberg - Institute for Advanced Study / Sameer Khan