Fellows
Each year, the Massachusetts Academy of Sciences honors distinguished individuals through its Fellowship and Honorary Life Member awards. The awardees constitute a select and prestigious community of scientists, engineers, research physicians, and others deeply concerned about science and science education. Awardees are recognized for extraordinary scientific accomplishments and service to the science community and the public. Academy peers initiate the nomination process. The Board of Governors' reviews all nominees and makes its selection on the basis of the quality and extent of accomplishment and service.
A candidate for Fellowship must have attained recognition for significant professional achievement in scientific research or science education. A candidate for Honorary Life Membership must have attained great distinction in science; only two are selected each year.
Nominations must include letters of support from three leading scientists or science educators in the nominee's field, one of which should be the letter of nomination. The nomination should include the candidate's curriculum vitae and a list of publications. Only one of the letters can be from a person employed at the same institution as the candidate or closely associated with the candidate's research. Self-nominations are not permitted. Academy Fellows will be announced and honored at the annual meeting.
Dr. Alcock is the Director Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and a professor of astronomy at Harvard University.
Dr. Ambros and his coworkers discovered the first microRNA while studying a C. elegans gene. He used the nematode model to study how microRNAs, which are regulators of gene expression in plants and animals, are integrated into animal development and human disease. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2007 for discovering microRNAs.
Dr. Ausubel is part of the Department of Genetics at Harvard University, and part of the Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dr. Berggren settled in Woods Hole in 1965 where he has been a Senior Scientist since 1971. At Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Dr. Berggren is involved in the analysis and interpretation of piston and gravity cores. He has established himself as a force in Plio-Pleistocene correlations.
Dr. Bhatia is a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, an Associate member of the Broad Institute, and a Biomedical Engineer at the Brigham & Women's Hospital. Her research is in the application of micro- and nano-technology to tissue repair and regeneration. She is the co-founder of two startup companies, holds 15 issued or pending patents and has worked in industry at Pfizer, Genetics Institute, ICI Pharmaceuticals, and Organogenesis.
Dr. Campbell joined the Department of Physics at Boston University in 2000. He served as Provost of BU from 2005 to 2010. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal Chaos, a Fellow of the APS and of the AAAS. Campbell is known for his studies of localized nonlinear excitations—“solitons,” polarons, bipolarons, “breathers,” “intrinsic localized modes”—in many branches of physics particularly in conducting polymers, magnetic systems, and related novel solid state systems.
Dr. Carpenter is the Director of the Imaging Platform at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. She also leads an interdisciplinary research group that develops and applies methods for extracting quantitative information from biological images in order to identify gene function, disease states, and therapeutic potential across diverse biological fields.
Dr. Connie Chow is Science Club for Girls’ first Executive Director, where she directs multiple free programs across Massachusetts, engaging over 650 youth from underrepresented groups from K-12 in hands-on explorations of science and engineering in out-of-school-time settings. Dr. Chow is a dedicated educator who has had a long-term interest in humanistic science education and social justice.
Dr. Coffin presently divides his time between Tufts University and the National Cancer Institute. He has served on a number of national committees to review and set policy regarding retroviruses and disease. In 1999, he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences.
Professor of Biology, Brandeis University, where she studies protein structure, dynamics, and assembly. In 2000, she was the Founder's Award winner for outstanding achievement in Biophysics from the Biophysical Society, among many other awards.
Dr. Dresselhaus has served as President of the American Physical Society, and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Treasurer of the National Academy of Sciences. She is devoted to promoting increased participation of women in science. She is an Institute Professor of Electrical Engineering and Physics at MIT and is noted for her work on graphite, graphite intercalation compounds, and carbon nanostructures and low dimensional thermoelectric materials.
Claire Duggan is the Director of Programs and Partnerships at the Center for STEM Education at Northeastern University.
Dr. Forney is an Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT. Dr. Forney's research interests include: coding and decoding for Euclidean-space channels, power- and bandwidth-efficient communication, connections between coding theory and system theory; complexity, combined equalization and coding, and quantum communications.
Dr. Gierasch is a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dr. Gierasch studies conformational analysis of peptides and proteins by NMR, CD and other spectroscopic methods, as well as biophysical approaches to protein folding and localization in vivo.
Dr. Gilbert won a Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1980 for developing a rapid DNA sequencing technology.
Dr. Glauber won the 2005 Nobel Prize for Physics for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence. Roy Glauber's recent research has dealt with problems in a number of areas of quantum optics, a field which, broadly speaking, studies the quantum electrodynamical interactions of light and matter. He is also continuing work on several topics in high- energy collision theory, including the analysis of hadron collisions, and the statistical correlation of particles produced in high-energy reactions.
Laurie Glimcher is the Irene Heinz Given professor of immunology in the department of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard School of Public Health, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an associate member at the Broad Institute. Her laboratory uses biochemical and genetic approaches to elucidate the molecular pathways that regulate CD4 T helper cell development and activation.
Dr. Hall is a Professor of Biology at Brandeis University. In his research, Dr. Hall and his colleagues investigate the function of the nervous system in Drosophila. Many of their approaches involve genetic studies of behavior, augmented in by molecular manipulations of genes defined by certain behavioral mutations.
Daniel L. Hartl is Higgins Professor of Biology in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. His research focuses on the molecular basis of evolutionary changes in genes and genomes. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also a Past President of the Genetics Society of America and the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.
Dr. Hopkins is part of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, where she studies the identification of genes essential for early development in zebra fish, and the role of these genes in longevity and cancer predisposition in adult fish.
Dr. Hu is a recipient of an NSF Distinguished Teaching Fellow award, a AAAS Lifetime Mentor Award, a Fellow of the IEEE, APS, and the AAAS, and holds an honorary Doctorate of Engineering from the University of Glasgow. Her research focuses on high-resolution fabrication of compound semiconductor electronic and optoelectronic devices, candidate structures for the realization of quantum computation schemes, and novel device structures formed through the heterogeneous integration of materials.
Dr. King graduated with a B.S. in Zoology from Yale University in 1962. He served as an Associate Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA before moving to MIT as an Assistant Professor in 1971, where he was granted tenure in 1974. Dr. King is a member of the Board of Directors for the Massachusetts Academy of Sciences and for the Technical Education Resource Center.
Dr. Kopell is currently the Co-director of the Center for BioDynamics at Boston University. Dr. Kopell's major current interest is dynamics of the nervous system, especially rhythmic behavior in networks of neurons.
Eric Lander is founding director of the Broad Institute. As one of the principal leaders of the Human Genome Project, Eric and colleagues are using these findings to explore the molecular mechanisms underlying the basis of human disease. Eric is also professor of biology at MIT and professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School. He founded the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research/MIT Center for Genome Research, which became part of the Broad Institute in 2003.
Dr. Larson is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and is an INFORMS Founding Fellow. He recently joined the Board on Health Sciences Policy of the Institute of Medicine. Until mid 2003, he served as Director of MIT’s Center for Advanced Educational Services. He is founding Director of Learning International Networks Consortium, and recently started their largest initiative, BLOSSOMS, Blended Learning Open Source Science or Math Studies.
Dr. Leeman is currently a professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at Boston University. Dr. Leeman's work focuses on the two peptides, substance P (SP) and neurotensin, which were isolated and chemically defined in this laboratory. A new direction of research involves studies directed towards the chemical characterization and function of the carbohydrate moieties on the SP receptor.
Dr. Lindquist is currently a professor of biology at MIT, an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. The central theme of Dr. Lindquist's research is to explore the impact of protein conformational changes on diverse processes in cellular and organismal biology.
Dr. Marder joined the faculty at Brandeis in 1978, and has been instrumental in the establishment of undergraduate and graduate programs in Neuroscience. She has served as the chief editor of the Journal of Neurophysiology since 2002. She is a fellow of the AAAS and a trustee of the Grass Foundation. Her work today focuses on understanding how stability in networks arises despite ongoing channel and receptor turnover and modulation, both in developing and adult animals.
Dr. Margulis (March 5, 1938 - November 22, 2011) was a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1983, and from William J. Clinton she received the Presidential Medal of Science in 1999. The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., announced in 1998 that they were going to permanently archive her papers. Her publications include original contributions to cell biology and microbial evolution.
Ms. Mayrand had the full-time roles of Regional Science Resource Center Director and Associate Director of the Office of Science Education at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. This science education initiative has evolved from a Science Mentor program into a wide range of educational assistance programs. Mayrand also serves as director of the Central Massachusetts Partnerships Advancing Learning of Mathematics and Science (PALMS).
Dr. McCarthy is an international leader in two major subfields of linguistics, phonology and morphology, and their interaction. In the early 1990’s McCarthy, Prince and Paul Smolensky developed Optimality Theory. His recent research developing Harmonic Serialism makes advances on fundamental issues concerning the nature of phonological derivation, paradigmatic relations, categoricality, and the concept of markedness.
Dr. Mello was awarded The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2006 for his discoveries related to RNA interference. He is a Professor in the Program in Molecular Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He uses nematode worm C. elegans as a model organism to investigate the mechanism of RNA interference. He is also investigating how embryonic cells differentiate and communicate during development.
Dr. Meselson is currently a Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences at Harvard University. The Meselson laboratory studies evolution of asexuality in bdelloid rotifers. Meselson described the "Meselson effect", which is when two alleles in an asexual organism evolve independently and divergently over time, producing what are essentially two genomes in one organism.
Ioannis (Yannis) N. Miaoulis, became President and Director of the Museum of Science, Boston in 2003 after a distinguished association with Tufts University. In addition to helping Tufts raise $100 million for its engineering school, Miaoulis greatly increased the number of female students and faculty, designed collaborative programs with industry, and more than doubled research initiatives. He also created the Center for Engineering Educational Outreach and the Entrepreneurial Leadership Program.
Bill Nye, scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, and MAS Fellow is a man with a mission: to help foster a scientifically literate society, to help people everywhere understand and appreciate the science that makes our world work. Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life. Bill Nye is the host of two currently running television series.
Dr. Pardue is currently The Boris Magasanik Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Pardue's research is on the genetic, biochemical, and cytological studies of structural elements of chromosomes, with an emphasis on telomeres, heterochromatin, and transposable elements. She also studies of the coordination of nuclear and cytoplasmic activities, and analysis of the molecular mechanisms by which cells respond to stress.
Dr. Partee is a Distinguished University Professor Emerita of Linguistics and Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research and teaching interests center on formal semantics and its connections with syntax, pragmatics, and logic. One lifelong interest is quantification. Her current research, joint with husband and colleague Vladimir Borschev of the Russian Academy of Sciences and UMass Amherst, aims to integrate Russian lexical semantics with Western formal semantics.
Dr. Pilbeam is a Henry Ford II Professor of Social Sciences at Harvard University. Dr. Pilbeam is interested in a wide range of topics involving human and primate evolution.
Tom Ricardi is a retired environmental police officer that operates the Massachusetts Birds of Prey Rehabilitation Center from his home in Conway, Massachusetts. As a bird of prey rehabilitator, Tom works with hawks, owls and eagles and gives informative live presentations.
Howard Ris has been President and CEO, of the New England Aquarium since 2005. In 2003 he was president of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), after serving as executive director from 1984 to 2001. He is a member of the Environmental Business Council of New England and was a founding member of the Professionals' Coalition for Nuclear Arms Control and the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility.
Ms. Schelkin serves on the Board of Directors of the Triangle Coalition for Science and Technology Education. Currently, she is serving as an Advisor for the New England Science Network at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As President of DOME, she works to enhance the exposure, awareness and understanding of the STEM fields and associated career paths for students from underrepresented populations.
Dr. Schrock is best known for his discovery of "high oxidation state carbene" (alkylidene complexes) by alpha hydrogen abstraction in high oxidation state metal alkyl complexes. He has applied alkylidene chemistry toward the controlled polymerization of cyclic olefins via ring-opening-metathesis polymerization (ROMP). In 2005 he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Chauvin and Grubbs. He was Associate Editor of Organometallics for 8 years and has published over 500 research papers.
Dr. Stanley is a professor at Boston University and the Director of the Center for Polymer Sciences.
Professor B. L. Turner II is the Milton P. and Alice C. Higgins Professor of Environment and Society and Director, Graduate School of Geography, Clark University. His research focuses on sustainability science, specifically on land change dynamics, ranging from the ancient Maya to contemporary deforestation in the tropics.
Dr. Wilson is a research professor emeritus and honorary curator of entomology at Harvard University. He has received many of the world's leading prizes for his research in science, his environmental activism, and his writing.
Dr. Windham-Bannister is former Managing Vice President of the Commercial Strategy Group for Abt Bio-Pharma Solutions Inc. In that capacity, she managed a research-based consulting business that provides consulting services to firms in the life sciences. In 2008, Dr. Windham-Bannister was appointed by the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center Board of Directors to be the Center’s first President and CEO.
Mary Young was Science Department Chair for twenty-five of the forty- three years she taught at North Quincy High School. Teaching high school biology and chemistry has comprised her teaching career, but constructing and providing educational experiences that challenge and inspire the next generation of teachers and students has been her passion.
Dr. Zahopoulos is founder and Executive Director of Northeastern University's Center for STEM Education. He is involved in the Gordon Engineering Leadership Program by assisting in the teaching of the Scientific Foundations of Engineering course. He is Director of Project RE-SEED (Retirees Enhancing Science Education through Experiments and Demonstrations). He was honored with the President's Aspiration Award from Northeastern University for his work in K-12 education and outreach.
Dr. Zuber's research interests include theoretical modeling of geophysical processes, analysis of altimetry, gravity and tectonics to determine the structure and dynamics of the Earth and solid planets, and development and implementation of spacecraft laser and radio tracking experiments.
