Five UCLA faculty members are among the newest class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and independent policy research centers.
Drawn from the sciences, the arts and humanities, business, public affairs and the nonprofit sector, the academy's 186 new fellows and 12 foreign honorary members are leaders in their fields and include recipients of the Nobel Prize, the National Medal of Science, the Pulitzer Prize, the Fields Medal, MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, and Grammy, Emmy, Academy and Tony awards.
UCLA is among the top six institutions in the number of 2013 fellows, along with UC Berkeley, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, Princeton and Stanford.
The UCLA fellows are:
Robert Allen Bjork, distinguished research professor, psychology
Bjork's research focuses on human learning and memory and on the implications of the science of learning for instruction and training, including identifying learning techniques that enhance long-term learning.
Drawn from the sciences, the arts and humanities, business, public affairs and the nonprofit sector, the academy's 186 new fellows and 12 foreign honorary members are leaders in their fields and include recipients of the Nobel Prize, the National Medal of Science, the Pulitzer Prize, the Fields Medal, MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, and Grammy, Emmy, Academy and Tony awards.
UCLA is among the top six institutions in the number of 2013 fellows, along with UC Berkeley, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, Princeton and Stanford.
The UCLA fellows are:
Robert Allen Bjork, distinguished research professor, psychology Bjork's research focuses on human learning and memory and on the implications of the science of learning for instruction and training, including identifying learning techniques that enhance long-term learning.
Herbie Hancock, professor at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music With a career spanning five decades, Hancock, who has earned 14 Grammys and one Oscar, is considered one of jazz music's most influential pianists and composers.
Margaret Candee Jacob, distinguished professor of historyJacob has played a critical role in shedding light on how the scientific and theoretical advancements of the Enlightenment worked their way into the mainstream of 17th- and 18th-century life.
Sorin Popa, professor of mathematics Popa, a fellow of the American Mathematical Society, is an expert in the branches of mathematics known as functional analysis/operator algebras and ergodic theory, among others.
Teofilo F. Ruiz, distinguished professor of history, holder of Peter H. Reill Term Chair in European History Ruiz is an internationally recognized historian whose work focuses primarily on medieval Spain and Europe. A scholar of the social and cultural history of late medieval and early modern Castile, he has published more than a dozen books.
Since its founding in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has elected leading "thinkers and doers" from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the 20th. The current membership includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.
