Four Northwestern faculty members were elected as members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, joining a distinguished group of individuals such as Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bryan Stevenson. 

Sociology Prof. Wendy Griswold, SESP Prof. C. Kirabo Jackson, sociology Prof. James Mahoney and physics and astronomy and Feinberg Prof. Sara A. Solla were among the 261 selected artists, scholars, scientists and leaders in the public, nonprofit and private sectors. 

“Membership is an honor, and also an opportunity to shape ideas and influence policy,” ​​Nancy Andrews, chair of the Academy’s Board of Directors, said in an April 28 news release. 

Griswold, the Bergen Evans professor in the humanities, has published several books and is currently writing a book on American cultural regionalism. She is also working on a comparative study of educated youth’s reading practices in 12 countries and organizing a research symposium on “Global and Local Strategies of 21st-Century African Artists.” 

Jackson is the Abraham Harris professor of education and social policy and a faculty fellow with the Institute for Policy Research. As a labor economist, his work includes analyzing issues such as the importance of public school funding on student outcomes and the effect of student demographics on teacher quality across schools.

Mahoney is the Gordon Fulcher professor in decision-making and a comparative-historical researcher with interests in political development, Latin America and methodology. His most recent book is “The Logic of Social Science,” and he has received several awards for his work on methodology from the American Sociological Association and the American Political Science Association. 

Solla’s research interests involve the application of statistical mechanics to the analysis of complex systems. Through her research, she has studied the information processing capabilities of neuron networks and the dynamics of incremental learning algorithms. At NU, her focus is on theoretical and computational neuroscience at the systems level.  

David Oxtoby, president of the Academy, said the Academy is celebrating the diverse achievements of those selected.

“These individuals excel in ways that excite us and inspire us at a time when recognizing excellence, commending expertise and working toward the common good is absolutely essential to realizing a better future,” Oxtoby said in the release. 

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @carolinelbrew

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