MIDDLE EASTERN HISTORIAN ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN NAMED TO AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Targeted News Service
April 20, 2010 Tuesday 4:40 AM EST
The City University of New York issued the following news release:
Ervand Abrahamian, CUNY Distinguished Professor of History at Baruch
College, is among the two hundred and twenty-nine leaders in the
sciences, the humanities and the arts, business, public affairs, and
the nonprofit sector who have been elected members of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. The new Fellows and Foreign Honorary
Members announced today join one of the world’s most prestigious
honorary societies. A center for independent policy research, the
Academy celebrates the 230th anniversary of its founding this year.
Professor Abrahamian an Armenian born in Iran and raised in England,
is well qualified by education and experience to teach world and
Middle East history. He has published Iran Between Two Revolutions,
The Iranian Mojahedin, Khomeinism, Tortured Confessions, and Inventing
the Axis of Evil. He teaches at the CUNY Graduate Center, and has
taught at Princeton, New York University, and Oxford University. He
is currently working on two books: one is The CIA Coup in Iran;
and another, A History of Modern Iran, for Cambridge University Press
A complete list of the 2010 class of new members is located at:
The scholars, scientists, jurists, writers, artists, civic, corporate,
and philanthropic leaders include winners of the Nobel, Pulitzer,
and Shaw Prizes; MacArthur and Guggenheim fellows; and Grammy, Tony,
and Oscar Award-winners.
Scientists among the new Fellows include: astronomer Geoffrey Marcy,
who discovered more than half of the currently known extrasolar
planets; chemist Joseph Francisco, whose research revolutionized our
understanding of chemical processes in the atmosphere; Evelyn Hu,
a pioneer in the fabrication of nanoscale electronic and photonic
devices; Chung Law, whose research on combustion has implications
for new classes of transportation fuels; Microsoft’s chief software
architect Ray Ozzie, creator of Lotus Notes; Christopher Field,
whose research in global ecology has helped in the assessment and
understanding of climate change; Timothy Ley, who led the group that
sequenced the first human cancer genome; and physician-scientist
Olufunmilayo Olopade, whose revolutionary findings on the genetics
of breast cancer were translated into interventions for women around
the world.
Social scientists include Nobel laureate economist Myron Scholes;
demographer and U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert Groves; archeologist
Kathryn Bard, who has conducted pathbreaking excavations in Egypt;
Edward Glaeser, whose empirical study of urban economics has helped
explain housing bubbles in U.S. cities; environmental geographer
Ruth DeFries, who uses satellite-imaging to help map and understand
the environmental effects of agriculture and urbanization; and legal
scholar and Lewis Powell biographer John Jeffries, Jr.
In the humanities and arts, new members include: theologian Harvey
Cox, Jr., Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Daniel Howe; Middle
East historian Ervand Abrahamian; philosopher Christopher Peacocke;
novelist Marilynne Robinson; installation and conceptual artist Dan
Graham; Suzanne Farrell, former New York City Ballet principal dancer
and founder of her own ballet company at the Kennedy Center; actors
John Lithgow and Denzel Washington; director Francis Ford Coppola;
violinist and conductor Jaime Laredo; jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins;
and baritone Thomas Hampson.
Among those elected to the Academy from public affairs are U.S.
Special Envoy to North Korea Stephen Bosworth; the Archivist of the
United States, David Ferriero; National Endowment for the Humanities
Chair James Leach and G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution.
Business leaders in the 2010 class of new members include Roger
Ferguson, Jr., President and CEO of financial services company
TIAA-CREF; Marjorie Scardino, CEO of international media company
Pearson PLC; and Samuel Palmisano, Chairman and CEO of IBM.
Higher education and foundation leaders in the new class are: Joseph
Aoun (Northeastern University); Gene Block (University of California,
Los Angeles); Scott Cowen (Tulane University) John DeGioia (Georgetown
University); Susan Desmond-Hellmann (University of California,
San Francisco); Robert Gallucci (John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation); John Jenkins (University of Notre Dame); Jim Yong Kim
(Dartmouth College); Morton Schapiro (Northwestern University);
and Luis Ubi?as (Ford Foundation).
The Academy also elected Foreign Honorary Members from Australia,
Canada, Finland, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Spain,
Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. They include: the Archbishop of
Canterbury Rowan Williams; Israeli high-energy physicist and advocate
for Middle East cooperation Haim Harari; Australian Academy of Science
president, Kurt Lambeck, whose geophysical research elucidates changes
in climate and sea levels; Michel Mayor, director of Switzerland’s
Geneva Observatory; Linda Partridge, specialist in the biology of
aging; Spain’s former Minister of Education and Science, Jose Mar?a
Maravall Herrero, who is credited with democratizing the Spanish
educational system; British filmmaker and playwright Mike Leigh;
Japanese architect Toyo Ito; Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen; and
Ratan Tata, Chairman of the Tata Group, India’s largest conglomerate.
Established in 1780 by John Adams and other founders of the nation,
the Academy undertakes studies of complex and emerging problems. Its
membership of scholars and practitioners from many disciplines and
professions gives it a unique capacity to conduct a wide range of
interdisciplinary, long-term policy research. Current projects focus
on science and technology; global security; social policy and American
institutions; the humanities and culture; and education.
"We are pleased to welcome these distinguished individuals into the
Academy," said Leslie Berlowitz, Chief Executive Officer and William
T. Golden Chair. "We look forward to drawing on their knowledge and
expertise to provide practical policy solutions to the pressing issues
of the day."
"The men and women we elect today are true pathbreakers who have
made unique contributions to their fields, and to the world," said
Academy Chair Louis W. Cabot. "The Academy honors them and their work,
and they, in turn, honor us."
The new class will be inducted at a ceremony on October 9, at the
Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Since its founding by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and
other scholar-patriots, the Academy has elected leading "thinkers and
doers" from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin
Franklin in the eighteenth century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo
Emerson in the nineteenth, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill
in the twentieth. The current membership includes more than 250 Nobel
laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
