Six researchers from Harvard Medical School have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Class of 2024 for exceptional scholarship and leadership in biomedical science.
Established in 1780, the academy honors excellence and convenes leaders from every field of human endeavor to examine and address the most vexing challenges facing the nation and the world. This year, the AAAS extended membership to 250 artists, scholars, scientists, and leaders.
“We invite these exceptional individuals to join in the academy’s work to address serious challenges and advance the common good,” said academy president David Oxtoby.
The newly elected members from HMS are:
- Paola Arlotta, HMS professor of stem cell and regenerative biology; Golub Family Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University
- Stephen Blacklow, the Gustavus Adolphus Pfeiffer Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology and chair of the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS
- Chinfei Chen, HMS professor of neurology at Boston Children's
- Sun Hur, the Oscar M. Schloss, MD Professor of Pediatrics and HMS professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Boston Children's Hospital
- Kornelia Polyak, HMS professor of medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
- Arlene Sharpe, the Kolokotrones University Professor at Harvard and head of the Department of Immunology at HMS
The newly elected members will be inducted at a ceremony in Cambridge, Mass., in September. They join a roster of esteemed academy members who came before them, including Benjamin Franklin (elected 1781), Alexander Hamilton (1791), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1864), Maria Mitchell (1848), Charles Darwin (1874), Albert Einstein (1924), Margaret Mead (1948), Martin Luther King, Jr. (1966), Madeleine Albright (2001), and Jennifer Doudna (2003).
Seven faculty from HMS have been named 2023 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). They are among the 502 scientists, engineers, and innovators receiving this lifetime honor. AAAS fellows are recognized from the biological sciences, chemistry, medical sciences, engineering, neuroscience, physics, and other fields.
The new fellows from HMS are:
- Martha Bulyk, HMS assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
- Kevin Haigis, HMS professor of medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
- Rohit Kulkarni, HMS professor of medicine at Joslin Diabetes Center
- Soumya Raychaudhuri, professor of biomedical informatics in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS and HMS professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s
- Kevin Staley, the HMS Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Child Neurology and Mental Retardation at Mass General
- Jatin Vyas, HMS associate professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital
- Ramnik Joseph Xavier, the HMS Kurt J. Isselbacher Professor of Medicine in the Field of Gastroenterology at Mass General
The new fellows will be recognized at a forum in September in Washington, D.C.
Judith Herman, HMS senior lecturer on psychiatry at Cambridge Health Alliance, has received the 2024 IMPACT Award from the Safe Havens Interfaith Partnership Against Domestic Violence and Elder Abuse. The IMPACT Award recognizes individuals and organizations whose partnerships and commitment contribute to justice and hope for victims and survivors of domestic violence and elder abuse.
Herman was recognized for her groundbreaking work on trauma, PTSD, and healing.
Peter Park, professor of biomedical informatics in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS, has been awarded the 2024 Samsung Ho-Am Prize in Medicine from the Ho-Am Foundation. The prize recognizes an individual of Korean heritage who has made distinctive contributions to the efforts of humankind to conquer disease and comes with an award of approximately $275,000.
Park was recognized for his work in computational biology, where his work has led to the development of innovative computational methods that are now used by universities, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies worldwide to examine DNA alterations in diseased cells. His contributions have played a critical role in mapping the genetic information of human cancers.
Zirui Song, associate professor of health care policy in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS, has been elected to the National Academy of Social Insurance. Song is one of 53 new members chosen for their significant professional contributions to social insurance, such as improving the quality of research, administration, or policymaking.
Peter Park, professor of biomedical informatics in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS, has been named a 2024 fellow of the International Society for Computational Biology. Park is one of 15 new fellows recognized for their leadership, research, and service in the field of computational biology and bioinformatics.
Park was recognized for his contributions in human genome and epigenome analysis, including studies of structural alteration in cancer genomes. This work had clinical applications. Park was also recognized for his mentorship as the director of the Bioinformatics and Integrative Genomics (BIG) Ph.D. Track in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at HMS.
Incoming Harvard Medical School student Shubhayu Bhattacharyay has been named a 2024 recipient of a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans.
The fellowship recognizes immigrants and children of immigrants pursuing graduate degrees. Bhattacharyay was one of 30 fellows chosen this year from a pool of 2,323 applicants.
Born in Kolkata, India, Bhattacharyay spent his early childhood in Thailand and Vietnam before his family settled in Los Angeles. He attended Johns Hopkins University, double- majoring in biomedical engineering and applied mathematics and statistics with a minor in Spanish.
Bhattacharyay was drawn to a career in medicine after his first year of college when he met survivors of traumatic brain injury, or TBI, who were participating in a brain-computer interface study. He was motivated to find ways to apply his interest in computational neuroscience to improve TBI survivors’ quality of life.
In 2020, Bhattacharyay began pursuing a PhD in clinical neuroscience at the University of Cambridge with the support of a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. For his thesis, he developed AI methods to improve the detail of information provided for prognostic counseling and suggest individually optimized treatment plans for patients being treated for TBI in intensive care units.
Bhattacharyay plans to become a physician-engineer in neurocritical or neurosurgical care. His current research focuses on identifying sources of bias in medical AI to protect TBI patients’ safety and equity. Ultimately, he hopes to use big data — analysis of massive information sets — to enhance TBI care. He will begin his MD program at HMS later this year.
Recipients of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship are chosen for their potential to make meaningful contributions to U.S. society, culture, or their academic fields. Fellows receive $90,000 in funding over two years.
Founded by Hungarian immigrants Daisy M. Soros and her late husband, Paul Soros, the fellowship program honors the contributions of continuing generations of immigrants in the United States.
