11 UCLA faculty members elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences | UCLA – UCLA Newsroom

Eleven UCLA faculty members were elected today to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nations most prestigious honorary societies. A total of 261 artists, scholars, scientists and leaders in the public, nonprofit and private sectors were elected, including honorary members from 16 countries.

UCLA had the second most honorees among colleges and universities, preceded only by Harvard. Stanford was third, UC Berkeley fourth, and MIT and Yale tied for fifth.

In February,UCLA was No. 1 in the number ofprofessors selected for2022 Sloan Research Fellowships, an honor widely seen as evidence of the quality of an institutions science, math and economics faculty.

UCLAs 2022 American Academy of Arts and Sciences honorees are:

John AgnewDistinguished professor of geographyAgnews research focuses on political geography, international political economy, European urbanization and modern Italy. Among his many awards is the2019Vautrin Lud Prize, one of the highest honors in the field of geography. In 2017, Agnew was selected to deliver UCLAs Faculty Research Lecture.

Walter AllenDistinguished professor ofeducation, sociology and African American studiesAllen, UCLAs Allan Murray Cartter Professor of Higher Education, is the director of UCLAs Capacity Building Center and the UCLA Choices Project.His expertise includesthe comparative study of race, ethnicity and inequality; diversity in higher education; family studies; and thestatus of Black males in American society.

Patricia GandaraResearch professor of educationGandara is co-director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA and chair of the working group on education for the UCMexico Initiative. Her publications include the 2021 books Schools Under Siege:Immigration Enforcement and Educational Equity and The Students We Share: Preparing U.S. and Mexican Teachers for Our Transnational Future.

Wilfrid Gangbo Professor of mathematicsGangbos expertise includes the calculus of variations, nonlinear analysis, partial differential equations and fluid mechanics. He is the founder of EcoAfrica, an association of scientists involved in projects in support of African countries, and is one of the UC and Stanford University faculty members who launched the David Harold Blackwell Summer Research Institute.

Haruzo HidaDistinguished research professor of mathematicsHida is an expert onnumber theory and modular forms. A highly honored mathematician, he has spoken about his research at numerous international conferences and was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1991 and the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research from the American Mathematical Society in 2019.

Leonid KruglyakDistinguished professor of human genetics and biological chemistryDavid Geffen School of Medicine at UCLAKruglyak is UCLAs Diller-von Furstenberg Professor of Human Genetics, chair of the department of human genetics and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. He studies the complex genetic basis of heritable traits, which involves many genes that interact with one another and the environment, and his laboratory conducts experiments using computational analysis and model organisms.He has been the recipient ofmany awards, includingthe Burroughs Wellcome Fund Innovation Award in Functional Genomics, the Curt Stern Award from the American Society of Human Geneticsand the Edward Novitski Prize from the Genetics Society of America.

Peter NarinsDistinguished research professor of integrative biology and physiology, and ofecology and evolutionary biologyNarins research focuses on how animals extract relevant sounds from the often noisy environments in which they live. His numerous honors and awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, theAcoustical Society of Americas2021 silver medal in animal bioacoustics and election to four scientific societies: the Acoustical Society of America, the Animal Behavior Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the International Society for Neuroethology.

Bradley ShafferDistinguished professor of ecology and evolutionarybiologyShaffer, the director of theUCLA La Kretz CenterforCalifornia ConservationScience, is an expert onevolutionary biology, ecology and the conservation biology of amphibians and reptiles. His recent work has focused on conservation genomics of endangered and ecologically important plants and animals of California, global conservation of freshwater turtles and tortoises, and the application of genomics to the protection of endangered California amphibians and reptiles.

Blaire Van ValkenburghDistinguished research professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biologyVan Valkenburgh, UCLAs Donald R. Dickey Professor of Vertebrate Biology, focuses on the biology and paleontology of carnivorous mammals such as hyenas, wolves, lions and sabertooth cats. She is a leading expert on the evolutionary biology of large carnivores, past and present, and analyzes the fossil record of carnivores from both ecological and evolutionary perspectives.

George VargheseProfessor of computer scienceUCLA Samueli School of EngineeringVarghese, UCLAs Jonathan B. Postel Professor of Networking,devotedthefirst part of his career tomaking the internet fastera field he calls network algorithmics for which he was elected to theNational Academy of Engineeringin 2017, theNational Academy of Inventorsin 2020 and theInternet Hall of Fame in 2021. He is now working to jump-start an area he calls network design automation to provide a set of tools for operating and debugging networks.

Min ZhouDistinguished professor of sociology and Asian American studiesZhou, UCLAs Walter and Shirley Wang Professor of U.S.China Relations and Communications, is director of UCLAs Asia Pacific Center.Her research interests include migration and development,Chinese diasporas,race and ethnicity, and urban sociology.

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, David Oxtoby, president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, said of this years honorees.

Membership is an honor, and also an opportunity toshape ideas and influence policy in areas as diverse as the arts, democracy, education, global affairs and science, said Nancy C. Andrews, chair of the academys board of directors.

The American Academy of Arts and Scienceswas founded in 1780 by John Adams, John Hancock and others who believed the new republic should honor exceptionally accomplished individuals. Previous fellows have included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and UCLA astrophysicistAndrea Ghez.

The academy also serves as an independent policy research center engaged in studies of complex and emerging problems. Its current membership represents some of todays most innovative thinkers across a variety of fields and professions and includes more than 250 Nobel and Pulitzer prize winners.

Read more here:
11 UCLA faculty members elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences | UCLA - UCLA Newsroom