| | 1 | Name: | Dame Gillian Beer | | | Institution: | University of Cambridge | | | Year Elected: | 2010 | | | Class: | 4. Humanities | | | Subdivision: | 402a | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1935 | | | | | | |
Gillian Beer is a preeminent interpreter of the Victorian novel, particularly of George Eliot and that daughter of the Victorians, Virginia Woolf. Even more importantly, she has been a pioneer in investigating the relations between scientific discourse and imaginative writing in 19th century England. She is particularly known for her work on Darwin, interpreting the imaginative energies and structures of his writings, so as to account for their cultural, in addition to their scientific, importance. She is equally eminent as a leader in English education and in English cultural life in general. She is the author of: Meredith: A Change of Masks, (1970); Darwin's Plots: Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and Nineteenth Century Fiction, (1983); George Eliot, (1986); Arguing With the Past, (1989); Forging the Missing Link, (1992); Open Fields: Science in Cultural Encounter, (1996); and Virginia Woolf: The Common Ground, (1996). Gillian Beer was awarded the 2017 Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism for her book Alice in Space: The Sideways Victorian World of Lewis Carroll. She was vice-president of the British Academy and is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. | |
| 2 | Name: | Dr. Robin J. H. Clark | | | Institution: | University College London | | | Year Elected: | 2010 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 102. Chemistry and Chemical Biochemistry | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1935 | | | Death Date: | December 6, 2018 | | | | | | |
Robin Clark’s work employing Raman microscopy changed the thinking of art historians and conservators on much artwork and many archaeological artifacts. His identification of the blue pigment on the priceless Lindisfarne Gospels (715 AD) in the British Library as solely indigo, not lazurite, removed the need for the then (2004) current but improbable proposition that trade in lazurite from Afghanistan to Northumbria existed in 715 AD; in fact we know from Clark’s work that it was not established until more than two centuries later. The identification of key pigments on "Young Woman Seated on a Virginal" provided persuasive evidence consistent with a reattribution of this painting to Vermeer, in consequence of which it was sold in London for 30 million dollars in 2004. However, many Egyptian papyri supposedly worth $3 million each and dating to 1250 BC were easily identified to have been illuminated with at least 7 modern pigments, including copper phthalocyanine blue (first made in Manchester in 1936); they thus proved to be virtually worthless. Robin Clark was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2010. He died in London on December 6, 2018 at the age of 83. | |
| 3 | Name: | Dr. Stanislas Dehaene | | | Institution: | Collège de France | | | Year Elected: | 2010 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 305 | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1965 | | | | | | |
Stanislas Dehaene was initially trained in mathematics, at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (1984), before receiving his PhD in cognitive psychology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (1989), under the direction of psycholinguist Jacques Mehler. He simultaneously developed neuronal models of cognitive functions with molecular neurobiologist Jean-Pierre Changeux (1987-present). After a post-doctoral stay with Michael Posner at the University of Oregon, he oriented his research towards the cognitive neuroscience of language and mathematical abilities. His experiments use brain imaging methods to investigate the mechanisms of cognitive functions such as reading, calculation and language processing, with a particular interest for the differences between conscious and non-conscious processing. Since 2005, he teaches at the Collège de France, where he holds the chair of Experimental Cognitive Psychology. He also directs the INSERM-CEA Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit at NeuroSpin in Saclay, just south of Paris -- France’s advanced neuroimaging research center. | |
| 4 | Name: | Dr. Jean-Michel Dubernard | | | Institution: | Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1; E. Herriot Hospital; French National Authority for Health (Haute Autorité de Santé) | | | Year Elected: | 2010 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 204. Medicine, Surgery, Pathology and Immunology | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1941 | | | Death Date: | July 10, 2021 | | | | | | |
Jean-Michel Dubernard is a surgeon in the Department of Urology and Transplantation Surgery at E. Herriot Hospital in Lyon. He is also a former Deputy Mayor of Lyon and a former member of the French National Assembly.
Dr. Dubernard attended medical school in Lyon. He then served as a Research Fellow with Joseph Murray at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (1965-1967) in Boston. Dr. Dubernard received his Docteur en Medecine from Lyon University in 1967. He subsequently received his Docteur en Biologie Humaine in Transplantation Immunology in 1971. As a surgeon, Dr. Dubernard is an important pioneer. His research interests continue to lie in experimental surgery, clinical transplantation (especially renal transplantation in children), medical technology, general urology, renal and pancreatic lithotripsy, endoscopy of the upper urinary tract investigations of male impotence, vascular surgery and microsurgery. In 1998 he led the international team that performed the world’s first modern hand-forearm transplant and in 2005 Dr. Dubernard's team performed the world’s first partial face transplant.
Dr. Dubernard is the President of the International Hand and Composite Tissue Allografts, as well as the Founder and President of the European College of Transplantation. Since 1980 he has been a member of the European Society for Organ Transplantation’s Founding Council. Dr. Dubernard was President of the International Microsurgical Society (1984-1986), President of the Société Française de Transplantation (1991-1994), and President of the International Pancreatic and Islet Transplant Association (1996-1997). His work has more than 400 scientific references in the form of articles, chapters of books, books, and films. In 2008 Dr. Dubernard received the Medawar Prize, the highest award of the International Transplantation Society. | |
| 5 | Name: | Dr. Wolfgang F. Fruehwald | | | Institution: | Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation; Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft | | | Year Elected: | 2010 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1935 | | | Death Date: | January 18, 2019 | | | | | | |
Wolfgang Fruehwald died on January 18, 2019 in Augsburg, Germany at the age of 83. Below is a biographical essay he wrote following his election to the American Philosophical Society in 2010.
Augsburg, where I was born in August 1935, is a city in the Swabian part of Bavaria with about 250,000 residents. Thus, until today I speak with a Swabian accent. I grew up in a small family of four persons, father, mother and my brother who is four years my senior. We lived in a small green suburb, called "garden-town," that means we had a big garden with flowers, fruits and vegetables, and a huge forest was nearby. When I was four years old, the world turned into fire and war. The Nazis started the Second World War, and some years later my school was bombed. But as luck would have it our family survived. In April 1945, peace was a brand new experience for me. It was a godsend that the following decades, the decades of my life as a boy and a man, are the longest periods of peace which Europe ever experienced in modern history. In autumn 1945, the schools were reopened. I went to high school and studied Latin, Greek, English, a little bit of French and Hebrew. When I received my high school-diploma in 1954 I was 19 years old. My fiancée, Victoria Schwarzkopf, was my classmate in the last classes of high school. We married four years later and are lucky enough to have now been married for more than 50 years. We have five children, two daughters and three sons (also three daughters in law), and 11 grandchildren.
In 1954, when I began to study at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, I was an outsider in my family. I studied German Language and Literature, History, Geography and Philosophy to become a high school-teacher in Bavaria. My grandfather and my father were railway employees in Germany. My brother chose the same career. In 1958, I received my first university degree (Staatsexamen) and was appointed assistant professor at the Institute of German Philology at Munich University. I received my Ph.D. in 1961, with a dissertation about medieval sermons from the 13th century, in 1969 I received the postdoctorate qualification (Habilitation) with a book about the German poet Clemens Brentano. My first appointment as full professor of History of German Literature was in 1970 at the University Trier-Kaiserslautern. In 1974, I accepted an offer for a chair at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. I declined offers from the University of Augsburg (1973) and the Free University of Berlin (1985). In 1985, I accepted an invitation as Distinguished Max Kade Visiting Professor at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
In 1984, when I was elected a member and four years later chairman of a reviewers committee (Fachausschuss) of the German Research Association (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), a busy period began in my life. Working for nongovernmental organizations of science and scholarship in Germany, Austria, Israel and the European Union I met very experienced colleagues and learned something new every day. It is not possible to enumerate all the functions and appointments which I had in science policy, science management and science organizations during more than twenty years. But, in addition to my chair at an institute with more than 6,000 students, my work for the German Research Association and the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation were the main obligations which I held. I was elected a member of the senate and the grants committee of the German Research Association in 1986. In 1991, I was elected and 1994 reelected President of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. After six years in office (two terms, 1991 - 1997) I returned to my chair in Munich. In 1999, I was elected President of the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation. The foundation has alumni-clubs in more than 50 countries of the world. During the eight years of my presidency (1999 - 2007) I visited 32 of them on different continents, in Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, in the United States, in Canada and in some countries of South America. I travelled once or twice every year around the world and I met new and old members of the worldwide Humboldt-Family. Looking back at 45 years as a scholar and a science manager I am very grateful that in many difficult situations and in each country which I visited I found collaborators, members and friends of the big science community which gave me the confidence that we are together able to increase the quality of life. Since 2003, I have been Professor Emeritus, since 2008 Honorary President of the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation. | |
| 6 | Name: | Dr. William Timothy Gowers | | | Institution: | University of Cambridge & Trinity College | | | Year Elected: | 2010 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 104. Mathematics | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1963 | | | | | | |
Early in his career, Timothy Gowers did outstanding work in abstract Banach space theory, a theory which involves sets which are operators or functions. In a series of brilliant papers, he solved several long-standing problems, introducing extensive use of methods from combinatorial number theory. One of his surprising results is the construction of a Banach space with almost no symmetry. He is now better known to the broad mathematical community by his later work in combinatorial number theory. His very original ideas (for example "Gowers norms"), led to a new proof of Szmeredi's theorem, which concerns the occurrence of arithmetic progressions in sets of integers. His ideas have led to many breakthroughs in the field, in particular concerning the occurrence of arithmetic progressions in the primes (a longstanding conjecture of Erdos and now a theorem of Gowers’ students Ben Green and Terry Tao.) He continues to lead the research in this combinatorial number theory, which is now having impact on and benefiting computer science. Gowers has also put much effort into bringing mathematics to the public in his writing which includes his book Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction (2002) and his many public lectures. He recently organized the writing of The Princeton Companion to Mathematics (2008). This is a book of over 1,000 pages, incorporating sections by over 100 of the world's best mathematicians. It is aimed at giving anyone with some undergraduate training in mathematics a taste of current knowledge in all of modern mathematics. This kind of contribution, by one of the world's leading researchers at the height of his productive years, is very unusual. | |
| 7 | Name: | Mr. Rodolfo H. Terragno | | | Institution: | 21st Century University, Argentina | | | Year Elected: | 2010 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1943 | | | | | | |
Rodolfo Terragno, a lawyer and journalist during the military dictatorship in Argentina, became a celebrated political commentator who was forced to emigrate, first to Venezuela, where he founded El Diario de Caracas, and then to England, where he began his work on political philosophy and Latin American history. With the fall of the military regime in 1983 he returned to Argentina to become a member of Raul Alfonsin's cabinet. Since then he has served the Argentine people in many capacities, most notably as a Minister, Head of the Cabinet, President of the Opposition Radical Party, and candidate for the national presidency. Terragno's political philosophy, expressed in his books, emphasizes the role of the cooperation of government and business in the promotion of science and education as the basic ingredients for the growth of post-industrial economies in developing countries. These ideas have been influential throughout the continent and beyond. Terragno has also authored important books on the South American independence movement in the early 19th century and on the foundations of the Falkland Islands conflict. One of his most original contributions was the discovery in Scotland of the "Maitland papers" which revealed a secret British plan for the invasion of South America and the takeover of the vice royalty of Peru - very similar to the plan executed by San Martin decades later. Rodolfo Terragno is currently chairman of, and teaches at, the Fundación Argentina Siglo 21. He received a law degree in 1967 from the School of Law and Social Sciences at the National University of Buenos Aires. His books include Memorias del Presente (1984), The Challenge of Real Development (1987), Maitland & San Martín (1998), and Historia y Futuro de las Malvinas (2006). His many honors include the French Ordre National du Mérite in 1987, the Italian Cavaliere di Gran Croce in 1987, and Brazil's Medalha Mérito Maua in 1988. Rodolfo Terragno was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2010. | |
| 8 | Name: | Dr. Martin Litchfield West | | | Institution: | All Souls College, University of Oxford | | | Year Elected: | 2010 | | | Class: | 4. Humanities | | | Subdivision: | 405. History and Philology, East and West, through the 17th Century | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1937 | | | Death Date: | July 13, 2015 | | | | | | |
Martin Litchfield West wrote the following biography in 2010, the year he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. He died July 13, 2015, at the age of 77.
I was born in London on 23 September 1937, the first child of Maurice Charles West, Civil Engineer, and his wife Catherine. We lived through the Second World War at Hampton, Middlesex, far enough out of London to receive only occasional bombs in the neighborhood, though the house was damaged one night.
The first seven years of my education were spent at a local primary school. Then I was put into the more challenging and stimulating milieu of Colet Court, the junior school attached to one of the major British independent schools, St. Paul's, and after three years I graduated to the main school. There was a strong emphasis there on Latin and Greek, which suited my growing interest in languages, and I had some excellent teachers. In 1955 I went with a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford, to pursue the four-year Literae Humaniores course. Among those who taught and influenced me there were Gordon Williams (my college tutor), E. R. Dodds, and Eduard Fraenkel, whose famous seminars were a daunting test-bed for fledgling scholars.
In 1959 I embarked on graduate work, choosing Hesiod as my area of study and Hugh Lloyd-Jones as my supervisor. He did me a great service by arranging for me to spend the next summer semester in Germany under Reinhold Merkelbach. Besides raising my German to a state of fluency, those months opened my eyes to different approaches, and I made the acquaintance of such powerful scholars as Walter Burkert, Rudolf Kassel, and Winfried Bühler, who were to remain lifelong friends.
Before leaving for Germany I had been elected to a three-year Junior Research Fellowship at St. John's College, Oxford, which I took up on my return. On the last day of 1960 I married my wife Stephanie, whom I had met at Fraenkel's seminars; she was now also doing graduate work and was to establish herself as a scholar in her own right. In 1963, following several unsuccessful applications for permanent positions in universities, I had the good fortune to be offered a Fellowship in Oxford at University College. The same summer we had our first child and I completed my doctoral thesis, a commentary on Hesiod's Theogony (augmented with a critical text and published in 1966).
I taught at University College for eleven years, while continuing to publish. In the fall of 1967 I spent a sabbatical term at Harvard as a visiting lecturer - my first experience of the USA. In 1974 I was asked whether I would be interested in the chair in Greek at Bedford College, London; it was intimated that I could continue to live in Oxford, where Stephanie was now employed and where our children were at school. I accepted the offer and began a new life of travelling up to London for a few days each week.
The London University scene, initially tranquil, became turbulent in the early eighties. There was official pressure for 'rationalization,' for mergers of colleges and departments, and after strenuous discussions it came about that Bedford merged with Royal Holloway College. This meant that my workplace was transferred from central London to a site out in Surrey, a little closer to Oxford but more awkward to reach by public transport. This forced me, at the age of 47, to learn to drive a car, something I had never before needed to do but much enjoyed doing once I mastered it.
During my London period I had two further memorable extended stays abroad: in 1980 a month in Japan as a guest of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and in 1986 a quarter as Visiting Professor at UCLA.
In 1991 I was successful with an application for a Senior Research Fellowship at All Souls College Oxford, as desirable a position as any in the academic world, and one that freed me from the regular commuting to Surrey and from increasingly tiresome administrative chores. It gave me the leisure to apply myself to learning Akkadian and some other Semitic languages, which I wanted to do in order to write a book on West Asiatic elements in early Greek poetry (The East Face of Helicon, 1997). I believe it is valuable for a classicist to learn other ancient languages besides Greek and Latin, and as a result of doing so I have been able, since 1994, to publish half a dozen articles on Mesopotamian and Iranian topics, and recently to complete a translation of Zoroaster's Gathas (to appear in August 2010). In 2000 my work received a wholly unexpected tribute in the form of the international Balzan Prize for Classical Antiquity.
I reached the statutory age of retirement in 2004, and my status at All Souls changed to that of Emeritus Fellow. I remain active in research and publication, and take pleasure in the tokens of recognition that continue to descend on me from time to time, such as the Festschrift produced for my 70th birthday in 2007, the honorary doctorate conferred by the University of Cyprus in 2008 (which came with a splendiferous robe and hat), and most recently my election to the American Philosophical Society.
Martin West | |
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