This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts’ founder and a Washington University professor have been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Emily Rauh Pulitzer, Pulitzer founder and chairman, and Elliot Lawrence Elson, professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics in the university's School of Medicine, are among 198 new members of the Academy.
Pulitzer is also a 2011 National Medal of Arts recipient.
The 2013 additions to this list of the world’s leading scholars, scientists, writers, artists and contributors in other fields include many well-known celebrities. Among them are astronaut and former Senator John Glenn, actor and director Robert De Niro, musicians Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger, U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey and operatic soprano Renee Fleming.
New members also include neuroscientist and president of Rockefeller University Marc Tessier-Lavigne, chemist Xiaowei Zhuang, mathematical physicist and director of the Institute for Advanced Study Robbert Dijkgraaf and educator Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot.
Pulitzer, Elson and the other new members will be inducted in an Oct. 12 event at the academy’s offices in Cambridge, Mass.
Since 1780, inductees have included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Webster, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill. The membership includes over 60 Pulitzer Prize winners and 250 Nobel laureates.
The full list of newly elected members is on the American Academy website.
(Note: Emily Rauh Pulitzer is a contributor to the Beacon.)
