David S. Ferriero inducted into 230th Class of Scholars, Scientists, Artists, Civic, Corporate, and Philanthropic Leaders
Press Release · Thursday, October 21, 2010

Cambridge, MA

David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences at a ceremony here on Saturday, October 9. The program officially welcomed the Academy’s 230th class of Fellows, celebrating cutting edge research and scholarship, artistic accomplishment and exemplary service to society.

Five members of the new class addressed their colleagues: the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, G. Wayne Clough; renowned cancer researcher and Chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco, Susan Desmond-Hellmann; veteran diplomat and President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Robert L. Gallucci; 15-term congressman and Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Jim Leach; and former Federal Reserve System Vice Chair and current CEO of financial services company TIAA-CREF, Roger W. Ferguson, Jr.  Actor and director Liev Schreiber, actor and author Alan Alda, and federal judge Diane Wood also participated in the program.

“The Induction ceremony celebrates the Academy’s mission and the accomplishments of its newly elected members,” said Academy President Leslie Berlowitz. “Through three centuries of service, the Academy and its Fellows have been dedicated to intellectual leadership and constructive action in America and the world.”

The weekend events also included a program celebrating the arts and humanities that featured new Fellows including actor, musician and author John Lithgow; novelist Marilynne Robinson; poet Henri Cole; conductor and pianist Dennis Russell Davies; and violinist Arnold Steinhardt; as well as a symposium on the Internet with, among others, Microsoft’s chief software architect Ray Ozzie, Archivist of the United States David Ferriero; and Marjorie Scardino, CEO of international media company Pearson PLC.

The 210 new Fellows and 18 Foreign Honorary Members are leaders in research, scholarship, business, the arts, and public affairs. Among the inductees are demographer and U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert Groves; IBM Chairman and CEO Samuel Palmisiano; Ford Foundation President Luis Ubiñas; television journalist Christiane Amanpour; and university presidents Joseph Aoun (Northeastern University); Gene Block (University of California, Los Angeles); and John DeGioia (Georgetown University).

Other new Fellows  inducted are 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; Timothy Ley, who led the group that sequenced the first human cancer genome; theologian Harvey Cox, Jr., Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Daniel Howe; and U.S. Special Envoy to North Korea Stephen Bosworth.

A complete list of new members is available on the Academy’s website.

Founded in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. Current Academy research focuses on science and technology policy; global security; social policy; the humanities and culture; and education. With headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Academy’s work is advanced by its 4,600 elected members, who are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business and public affairs from around the world. (www.amacad.org)

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