Pitt has five new American Academy of Arts and Sciences members

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences announced the election of its new members, and five inductees from the University of Pittsburgh are among the distinguished honorees.

The academy is a beacon of excellence and leadership across a wide range of disciplines with a mission is to unite leaders and innovators from every field of human endeavor. Its current membership includes more than 250 Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, and the academy has honored leaders like Benjamin Franklin, Martin Luther King Jr., Madeleine Albright and Jonas Salk, Pitt legend and leader of the creation of the polio vaccine.

The Pitt leaders and scholars joining the prestigious list are:

• Elizabeth Arkush, an anthropology professor and archaeologist who has been conducting research in the Peruvian Andes since 1999. She examines war and violence and their connections to political authority, community and ideology.
• Jeffrey L. Brodsky, Avinoff Professor of Biological Sciences, who leads the Center for Protein Conformational Diseases. His research, in part, focuses on understanding how drugs and genetic approaches can correct defects in protein architecture.
• Yuan Chang, a Distinguished Professor of Pathology, an American Cancer Society research professor and the UPMC Endowed Chair in Cancer Virology. She previously co-led the Cancer Virology Program, which discovered the Kaposi sarcoma herpesvirus and the Merkel cell polyomavirus, two of the seven human viruses that cause 20% of cancers globally.
• Joan Gabel, 19th chancellor of the University, vice chair of the Council on Competitiveness, chair of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities Council of Presidents and board member of the American Council on Education and Fulbright Council for International Exchange of Scholars.
• Patrick S. Moore, a Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, an American Cancer Society research professor and a Pittsburgh Foundation Endowed Chair in Innovative Cancer Research. He previously co-led the Cancer Virology Program with Distinguished Professor Chang, his wife.

The inductees will be honored in September during ceremonies in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

— Kara Henderson