5/2/00

Kathleen O'Toole, News Service (650) 725-1939; e-mail: kathleen.otoole@stanford.edu

Six faculty named members of American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Two Stanford physicists, two economists, a mathematician and a biologist have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in recognition of their distinguished contributions.

The academy, which honors intellectual achievement in a wide variety of fields, selected 154 new members and 15 foreign honorary members from 89 institutions on April 15.

Those elected from Stanford this year are Mark M. Davis, professor of microbiology and immunology at the School of Medicine and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI); Jonathan Dorfan, director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center; Michael Peskin, also a SLAC professor; George Papanicolaou, a professor of mathematics; and Edward Lazear and Paul Romer, both professors at the Business School and fellows of the Hoover Institution. Romer also codirects a research program at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR).

Davis, who directs the Medical School's doctoral program in immunology, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1993. He is known for his work in the 1980s identifying the elusive T­cell receptor gene, which regulates the cells that produce disease-fighting proteins. He and Professor Alan Krensky more recently discovered a protein called granulysin, and recent studies have shown this protein kills the bacteria that causes tuberculosis.

Dorfan was a research physicist at SLAC before becoming a professor in 1989 and center director last September. Since 1994, he has led the B-Factory project to pursue the question of why we live in a universe dominated by matter, rather than equal parts matter and anti-matter. His research areas are experimental particle physics and accelerator design.

Lazear, the Jack Steele Parker Professor of Human Resources Management and Economics in the Business School, first came to Stanford as a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution in 1985. A labor economist, he is often considered the founder of the field of the economics of personnel, which focuses on the efficiency basis for many of the institutional features of employment relationships. Business School students named him the school's most distinguished teacher in 1994.

Papanicolaou, the Robert Grimmett Professor of Mathematics, works on probability theory, especially concerning the solution of random ordinary and partial differential equations. Among other research, he uses computers to study the general properties of waves in random materials, which has implications for seismic prospecting and geophysics.

Peskin is a professor of theoretical high-energy physics at SLAC, where he works on models of symmetry-breaking in electroweak gauge theory and methods. He is co-author of a 1995 quantum mechanics textbook.

Romer, the STANCO 25 Professor of Economics at the Business School, has revived interest in the theory of economic growth, particularly the study of why growth rates differ, by extending the theory to include knowledge production and technological change. He is a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution and co-directs the Center for Research on Employment and Economic Growth at SIEPR. Business students chose him to receive the school's distinguished teaching award in 1999.

Induction ceremonies for the new members are scheduled for Oct. 14. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has a membership of 3,600 fellows and 600 foreign honorary members. The organization has existed 220 years and is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass.

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By Kathleen O'Toole