Five members of the Harvard Medical School faculty have been elected members of the 2023 class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. They are among the nearly 270 individuals recognized by the academy this year for their accomplishments and leadership in academia, the arts, industry, public policy, and research.
“With the election of these members, the Academy is honoring excellence, innovation, and leadership and recognizing a broad array of stellar accomplishments,” said Academy President David Oxtoby.
“We hope every new member celebrates this achievement and joins our work advancing the common good,” he said.
The five honorees from HMS are:
- Karen Adelman, professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS
- Benjamin Ebert, the HMS George P. Canellos, MD, and Jean S. Canellos Professor of Medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
- Elizabeth Engle, HMS professor of neurology at Boston Children’s Hospital
- David Pellman, the HMS Margaret M. Dyson Professor of Pediatric Oncology and professor of cell biology at Dana-Farber
- Wade Regehr, professor of neurobiology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS
Founded in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an honorary society and independent policy research center that honors excellence and engages leaders from various disciplines to provide solutions to complex challenges facing the world.
The new members from HMS join a distinguished group of individuals from a wide range of disciplines elected to the academy before them, including Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Margaret Mead, and Stephen Hawking.
Seven Harvard Medical School faculty members are among 120 individuals elected this month to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
The newly elected members from HMS are:
- Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas, professor of cell biology, emeritus, and part-time lecturer on cell biology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS
- Gordon Fishell, professor of neurobiology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS
- Wade Harper, the Bert and Natalie Vallee Professor of Molecular Pathology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS
- Bradford Lowell, professor of medicine at HMS and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
- Danesh Moazed, professor of cell biology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS
- Pamela Silver, the Elliott T. and Onie H. Adams Professor of Biochemistry and Systems Biology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS
- Ulrich von Andrian, the Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Professor of Immunopathology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit institution that was established under a congressional charter signed by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It recognizes achievement in science by election to membership and, with the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine, provides science, engineering, and health policy advice to the federal government and other organizations.
Vaibhav Mohanty, an MD/PhD student in the Harvard-MIT MD/PhD program, has been named one of 15 2023 Hertz Fellows by the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation. The Hertz Fellowship provides funding for five years of graduate studies to doctoral students chosen for their extraordinary creativity in tackling some of the most significant challenges facing our nation and world today.
“A Hertz Fellowship not only provides catalytic support during one’s graduate career; being awarded a fellowship welcomes fellows into a community that can accelerate impact for a lifetime,” said Philip Welkhoff, a Hertz fellow and Hertz board director.
Mohanty earned his first PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Oxford and is now pursuing his MD and a second PhD in chemistry in the Harvard-MIT MD/PhD program. He hopes to develop mutational “traps” to combat the rapid evolution of proteins in infectious pathogens and cancer.
Two HMS faculty members have been elected to the American Philosophical Society (APS). They will join the 982 elected APS representing excellence across a wide variety of academic disciplines.
The two new members from HMS are:
David Walt, the HMS Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering and professor of pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Emery Brown, the HMS Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anaesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital
Founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743, the APS is the oldest learned society in the United States. Since 1900, over 270 members have received the Nobel Prize.
Patricia D’Amore, the HMS Charles L. Schepens Professor of Ophthalmology at Schepens Eye Research Institute, received the 2023 Gabor Kaley Memorial Lectureship Award from the American Physiological Society.
Named in honor of physiologist Gabor Kaley, the award recognizes an outstanding contributor to the field of microcirculatory physiology and pathophysiology noted for the quality of their research and who has demonstrated commitment to the development and training of junior scientists.
