Five Caltech Faculty Members Elected to Membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

PASADENA, Calif. — The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has announced that five members of the Caltech faculty have been elected to membership in the academy for contributions to their respective scientific fields.

The Caltech faculty members who have been elected are Richard Andersen, Boswell Professor of Neuroscience; David Anderson, professor of biology and investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI); Ronald Drever, professor of physics, emeritus; Mary Kennedy, Davis Professor of Biology; and Mark Wise, McCone Professor of High Energy Physics.

Richard Andersen is receiving recognition for his work in the fields of neuroscience, cognitive science, and behavioral biology. With the assistance of his postdoctoral and graduate students, he has examined the functions of the brain in relation to seeing, hearing, orientation, balance, and movement planning.

The author of more than 130 scholarly articles on the functions of the brain, Andersen has been honored with the Spencer Award from Columbia University, the McKnight Foundation Scholars Award, a Sloan Foundation Fellowship, a Regent's Fellowship, and an Abraham Rosenberg Fellowship, and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

David Anderson is being honored for his work in the fields of neurobiology, developmental biology, and genetics, where he has been able to make advances in stem-cell research that he hopes will eventually help fight brain diseases and spinal-cord injuries. Anderson has also made important discoveries in the field of angiogenesis, the study of blood vessel formation.

Anderson, who has authored more than 140 scholarly publications in the field of genetics and neuroscience, has also been honored with the Searle Scholars Award, the Charles Judson Herrick Award in Comparative Neurology, and the W. Alden Spencer Award in Developmental Neurobiology from Columbia University. His current affiliations include the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Society for Neuroscience, and the Neuron editorial board.

Ronald Drever is being recognized for his work relating to gravitational physics and for his pioneering research on gravitational radiation detection. His group carried out early searches for gravitational waves, and he was cofounder of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, a project shared by Caltech and MIT. Drever invented many of the techniques in gravitational-wave detection, including a high-precision method for controlling laser frequency now widely used in many science and technology applications.

Drever is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and is a former vice president of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Mary Kennedy is being honored for her contributions to the field of brain biochemistry and the mechanisms of learning and memory. Her research group is studying the effects of proteins in the brain and their relation to how memories are stored.

Kennedy holds numerous memberships and has been the recipient of several grants, as well as publishing a number of scientific works. Her honors include a McKnight Neuroscience Development Award, and she is an elected councilor of the Society for Neuroscience. Kennedy has also received a Faculty Award for Women Scientists and Engineers, and she is a member of the scientific advisory board of the Hereditary Disease Foundation, and the Scientific Advisory Board of the French Foundation for Alzheimer Research.

Mark Wise is receiving membership for his involvement in the field of high-energy physics, where he has developed information on the essential characteristics of particles and how they interact with each other to create the physical world.

Wise has been the recipient of a Sloan Foundation research grant and the Sakurai Prize, which reflects the admiration of his peers for his work and accomplishments in his field. Wise is also a member of the American Physical Society.

Founded in 1780 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences serves as a hub for complex study and discussion of multidisciplinary problems. This year, the academy elected 177 fellows and 30 foreign honorary members.

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