President Richard C. Levin, Yale trustee José Cabranes, two faculty members and an editor at the University are among the 146 individuals recently elected as fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The new fellows -- who also include David Bromwich, the Bird White Housum Professor of English, Peter W. Jones, professor of mathematics, and J.D. McClatchy, editor of The Yale Review -- were chosen in recognition of their distinguished contributions to science, scholarship, public affairs and the arts.
The five Yale scholars join a membership of approximately 4,000 fellows nationwide, including 160 Nobel laureates and 65 Pulitzer Prize-winners.
Profiles of the new fellows follow:
Richard C. Levin devoted nearly two decades to teaching and scholarship at Yale before becoming the University's 22nd president in 1993. He joined the faculty as an assistant professor in 1974, the same year he earned his Ph.D. in economics from Yale. Levin is nationally known for his studies of technological change and its impact on industry, and has written widely on such topics as the patent system, industrial research and development, and the effects of antitrust and public regulation on private industry. A series of papers he wrote in the 1970s and 1980s have been credited with influencing the course of railroad deregulation. As Yale president, Levin has established initiatives in partnership with the City of New Haven in the areas of neighborhood revitalization, education and human services and economic development.
José Cabranes, who earned his J.D. from the Law School in 1965, has been a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit since 1994. A native of Puerto Rico, Cabranes served as special counsel to the governor of Puerto Rico and as head of the commonwealth's Washington, D.C. office. He was a founding member and chaired the board of directors of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, a public interest law firm in New York City. He has been a Yale trustee since 1987.
David Bromwich is a scholar of Romantic and modern poetry, the history of literary criticism and 18th- and 19th-century moral philosophy. He graduated from Yale College in 1973 and earned his Ph.D. at the University in 1977. Bromwich is the author of "Politics by Other Means," as well as "Hazlett: the Mind of a Critic" and "A Choice of Inheritance: Self and Community from Edmund Burke to Robert Frost," both of which were nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism. He has served as poetry editor of "Tikkun" and has been a consultant for a poetry series on National Public Radio.
Peter W. Jones is a specialist in his field in complex and harmonic analysis, probability theory, dynamical systems and the theory of complexity in theoretical political science. He came to Yale in 1985. In 1994, Jones became the youngest person to receive an honorary degree from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden for his "pathbreaking scientific contributions to modern mathematic analysis" and for promoting the study of mathematics at the institute. He continues to maintain strong ties with the Swedish mathematical community.
J.D. McClatchy, who earned his Ph.D. from Yale in 1974, is a prize-winning poet, literary critic and opera librettist. He has been editor of The Yale Review since 1991. McClatchy has written four volumes of poetry, the most recent of which is "10 Commandments," published this year. He has also authored numerous works of criticism of contemporary poetry and literary essays, and has edited several volumes, including "The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry." He recently wrote "20 Questions," a meditation on the mysteries of poetry and its relationship to life. He has written four opera librettos, including the one for "Emmeline," which was presented recently by the New York City Opera.
Founded in 1780 by John Adams and other leaders of the young republic, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences was created as a learned society "to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent and virtuous people." Fellows address issues facing American society through interdisciplinary and collaborative projects and publications. Among the current projects, for example, are a long-term study of current global security issues and an exploration of the critical problems confronting children in American society, with a particular emphasis on health and education. The academy also publishes a journal, Daedalus, which examines topics of concern in American intellectual life.
|