Richmond joins 175 new fellows and 20 new foreign honorary members who have been elected to the academy for this year. The new members include two former U.S. presidents; the chief justice of the United States; a Nobel laureate; winners of the Pulitzer Prize in poetry, drama, music, investigative reporting, and non-fiction; a former U.S. Poet Laureate; and, a member of the French Senate.
Richmond, who has been at Oregon since 1985, specializes in physical and environmental chemistry, optics and spectroscopy and surface and material science. She received the Spiers Medal from the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2004 and was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2003.
"I am thrilled and deeply honored to be elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and to join the ranks of such an esteemed group of scholars, artists and leaders," said Richmond. "It is also a wonderful tribute to the spectacular group of students and postdoctoral associates that I have had the privilege to work with in my laboratory during my career at the University of Oregon."
"On behalf of the University of Oregon, I am delighted to offer my heartfelt congratulations to Dr. Richmond upon her election to this most prestigious organization," said Dave Frohnmayer, president of the University of Oregon, who was elected an academy fellow in 2002. "Dr. Richmond is one of the world's most accomplished chemists and she is an enormous credit to her profession and to this university. We are extremely honored to have her as a member of the Oregon faculty and as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences."
This year's academy fellows include former U.S. presidents George H.W. Bush and William Jefferson Clinton; Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts; Nobel Prize-winning biochemist and Rockefeller University President Sir Paul Nurse; the chairman and vice chairman of the 9/11 commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton; actor and director Martin Scorsese, along with leading scientists and scholars from across the nation.
Foreign honorary members include former French Minister of Justice and current member of the French Senate, Robert Badinter; National University of Singapore President Shih Choon Fong; Japanese ecologist Yoh Iwasa; Ecuadorian biologist and Galapagos Islands champion Eugenia Del Pino Veintimilla; British author and playwright William Trevor; and Henri Loyrette, president and director of the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Fellows and foreign honorary members are nominated and elected to the academy by current members. A broad-based membership, comprised of scholars and practitioners from mathematics, physics, biological sciences, social sciences, humanities and the arts, public affairs and business, gives the academy a unique capacity to conduct a wide range of interdisciplinary studies and public policy research.
"It gives me great pleasure to welcome these outstanding leaders in their fields to the Academy," said Patricia Meyer Spacks, president of the academy. "Fellows are selected through a highly competitive process that recognizes individuals who have made preeminent contributions to their disciplines and to society at large."
The academy will welcome this year's new class at its annual induction ceremony on Oct. 7 at the academy's headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.
Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and other scholar-patriots, the academy has elected as fellows and foreign honorary members the finest minds and most influential leaders from each generation, including George Washington and Ben Franklin in the 18th century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the 20th century. The current membership includes more than 170 Nobel laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners. An independent policy research center, the academy undertakes studies of complex and emerging problems. Current academy research focuses on science and global security; social policy; the humanities and culture; and education.
Contact: Pauline Austin, (541) 346-3129, paustin@uoregon.edu
Source: Geri Richmond, Richard M. and Patricia H. Noyes Professor of Chemistry, (541) 346-4625, richmond@uoregon.edu
Links:
Geri Richmond, http://richmondscience.uoregon.edu/
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, www.amacad.org