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Nine Stanford faculty members elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Nine Stanford faculty have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the country’s oldest and most prestigious honorary learned societies.

Nine Stanford faculty members are among the 261 new members elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAA&S), which honors exceptional scholars, leaders, artists, and innovators engaged in advancing the public good.

The new Stanford members to join the Class of 2022 are as follows:

Robert Gordon, professor of law, emeritus, is a preeminent legal historian with expertise in American legal history, evidence, the legal profession, and law and globalization. He has written extensively on contract law, legal philosophy, and on the history and current ethics and practices of the organized bar. Gordon, who joined the Stanford Law faculty in 1982, spent time in the U.S. Army and as a journalist before teaching at Buffalo, Wisconsin, and Yale law schools.

James Gross is the Ernest R. Hilgard Professor of Psychology in the School of Humanities and Sciences and Director of the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory and of the Stanford Psychology One Teaching Program. He is also a member of Stanford Bio-X, the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, the Maternal & Child Health Research Institute (MCHRI), and Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. His research focuses on areas of emotion and emotion regulation, and he has published over 500 papers on the subject. Gross is a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education Association.

Rob Jackson is a professor of Earth system science and the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor. He is a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Precourt Institute for Energy, and also chairs the Global Carbon Project. Jackson’s research explores the many ways people affect the Earth, including the impacts of climate change, energy extraction, and water demands. Some of his current lab projects explore droughts and forest mortality, the global carbon dioxide and methane budgets, and how soils and soil fertility influence plant growth and survival.

Shamit Kachru is the Wells Family Director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics in the Department of Physics in the School of Humanities and Sciences and a member of Stanford Bio-X. Kachru is known for his work on string theory and quantum field theory, and their possible applications to early universe cosmology, particle physics, and condensed matter physics. He has also done recent work on connections of theoretical physics to problems in mathematics and evolutionary biology.

Rafe Mazzeo is the Louise and Claude Rosenberg Jr. University fellow in Undergraduate Education and Department Chair of Mathematics in the School of Humanities and Sciences. He is also the Director of the IAS/Park City Mathematics Institute and Faculty Director of the Stanford Online High School. Mazzeo’s research focuses broadly on geometric analysis, microlocal analysis, and partial differential equations. His current interests include gauge theory, analysis on singular spaces, and curvature equations.

Kunle Olukotun is the Cadence Design Systems Professor in the School of Engineering and professor of electrical engineering and of computer science. He is also an affiliate of the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI). Olukotun developed the first general-purpose multicore processor. He now directs the Stanford Pervasive Parallelism Lab, which focuses on making parallel applications much easier to develop. He is also a member of the Data Analytics for What’s Next (DAWN) Lab, which is developing infrastructure for high-performance, usable machine learning.

David Relman, the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor and a professor of infectious diseases and of microbiology and immunology, is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the chief of infectious diseases at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. Relman pioneered the modern study of the complex microbial community residing in and on the human body. A past president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, he has advised the U.S. government on emerging infectious diseases, human-microbe interactions, and future biological threats. He is a member of Stanford Bio-X, the Stanford Cancer Institute, and the Stanford Child and Maternal Health Research Institute, and is a senior fellow of Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Juan G. Santiago is the Charles Lee Powell Foundation Professor and professor of mechanical engineering. He is also a member of Stanford Bio-X and the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, and a fellow of Stanford ChEM-H. Santiago’s research focuses on micro- and nano-scale transport to develop new technologies to benefit humankind. These technologies include microsystems for on-chip chemical and biochemical analysis, methods for DNA identification and quantification, and electric-field-based deionization methods useful for desalination and wastewater treatment.

Abraham Verghese, the Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor, professor of medicine, and vice chair for the theory and practice of medicine in the Department of Medicine. His research focuses on clinical skills and the bedside exam, including not only its technical aspects but the importance of the ritual and what is conveyed by the physician’s bedside presence and technique. A member of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute and of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2016.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences serves the nation as a champion of scholarship, civil dialogue, and useful knowledge. The academy is committed to interdisciplinary, nonpartisan research that provides pragmatic solutions for complex challenges.