Five people with Pitt affiliations, including Chancellor Joan Gabel, have been elected to the 2024 class of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
The new members from Pitt are:
Chancellor Joan Gabel, 19th leader of the University, vice chair of the Council on Competitiveness, chair of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities Council of Presidents and board member of the American Council on Education and Fulbright Council for International Exchange of Scholars.
Jeffrey L. Brodsky, Avinoff Professor of Biological Sciences in the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, who leads the Center for Protein Conformational Diseases. His research, in part, focuses on understanding how drugs and genetic approaches can correct defects in protein architecture.
Elizabeth Arkush, an anthropology professor in the Dietrich School and an archaeologist who has been conducting research in the Peruvian Andes since 1999. She examines war and violence and their connections to political authority, community and ideology.
Yuan Chang, distinguished professor of pathology in the School of Medicine, an American Cancer Society research professor and the UPMC Endowed Chair in Cancer Virology. She co-leads the Chang-Moore Lab and Cancer Virology Program, which discovered the Kaposi sarcoma herpesvirus and the Merkel cell polyomavirus, two of the seven human viruses that cause 20 percent of cancers globally.
Patrick S. Moore, distinguished microbiology and medical genetics professor in the School of Medicine, an American Cancer Society research professor and a Pittsburgh Foundation Endowed Chair in Innovative Cancer Research. He co-leads the Chang-Moore Lab and Cancer Virology Program with Yuan Chang, his wife.
They join the 250 members elected in 2024, including actor George Clooney, Apple CEO Tim Cook and former NBA star and philanthropist Grant Hill.
“We honor these artists, scholars, scientists and leaders in the public, nonprofit and private sectors for their accomplishments and for the curiosity, creativity, and courage required to reach new heights,” David Oxtoby, president of the academy, said in a statement. “We invite these exceptional individuals to join in the Academy’s work to address serious challenges and advance the common good.”
The inductees will be honored in September during ceremonies in Cambridge, Mass.
Founded in 1780 in the midst of revolution — by John Adams, John Hancock, and others — the academy’s membership and work have changed greatly over the centuries while remaining faithful to a charter founded on ideals that celebrate the life of the mind, the importance of knowledge, and the belief that the arts and sciences are “necessary to the interest, honor, dignity and happiness of a free, independent and virtuous people.”