American Philosophical Society
Member History

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International (2)
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Class
1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences[X]
 Name:  Dr. Stephen J. Benkovic
 Institution:  Pennsylvania State University
 Year Elected:  2002
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  102. Chemistry and Chemical Biochemistry
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1938
   
 
Stephen J. Benkovic received an A.B. in English literature and a B.S. in chemistry from Lehigh University in 1960 and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry with a minor in physical chemistry and biochemistry from Cornell University in 1963. He joined the faculty of Pennsylvania State University in 1965, has been Evan Pugh Professor since 1977 and has held the Eberly Chair in Chemistry since 1986. Dr. Benkovic's early immersion in the classics and in English literature has facilitated his coherent presentation of complicated processes at the chemistry/biology interface. In the laboratory, he uses a dazzling combination of methodologies to define the pathways by which separate and combined protein systems carry out the chemical conversions crucial to life processes, including DNA polymerization and replication. His studies of enzyme mechanisms led to inhibitor design and chemotherapeutic agents; those on catalytic antibodies clarify the connection between chemistry and immunology. His love of literature has been transmuted to service on editorial boards of sixteen scientific journals. He was the recipient of the Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry from Pennsylvania State University in 1977, the Gowland Hopkins Award in 1986, the Repligen Award in 1989, the Alfred R. Bader Award of the American Chemical Society in 1995, the Christian B. Anfinsin Award in 2000, the National Medal of Science in 2010, and the NAS Award in Chemical Sciences in 2011. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Chemical Society, and the Royal Society. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2002.
 
 Name:  Dr. Jacques Blamont
 Institution:  University of Paris IV; Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales
 Year Elected:  2002
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  101. Astronomy
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1926
 Death Date:  April 13, 2020
   
 
A distinguished scholar, leader of space research and commander of the Legion of Honor, Jacques Blamont was an internationally recognized scientist and Professor at the University of Paris - VI and Conseiller du President du CNES. He pioneered planetary exploration, leading CNES in mission design and planning, including joint efforts with the USSR. He promoted a rapprochement between the U.S. and USSR in troubled times. Working with NASA, Dr. Blamont exhibited remarkable creativeness in the design of space vehicles, scientific instruments and research approaches. His work and guidance have proven of enormous benefit to the United States. A broad intellectual, he wrote an almost poetical work on the evolution of science. His publications include Vénus dévoilée, Voyage autour d'une planète (1987); Le Chiffre et le Songe, Histoire politique de la découverte (1993); Le Lion et le Moucheron, Histoire des Marrances de Toulouse (2000); and Introduction au Siècle des Menaces (2004). Jacques Blamont died April 13, 2020 in Chatillon, France at the age of 93.
 
 Name:  Dr. William F. Brinkman
 Institution:  United States Department of Energy
 Year Elected:  2002
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  103. Engineering
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1938
   
 
William F. Brinkman received a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Missouri in 1965. He joined Bell Laboratories in 1966 after spending one year as an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford University. In 1972, he became head of the Infrared Physics and Electronics Research Department, and in 1974 he became the director of the Chemical Physics Research Laboratory. He held the position of director of the Physical Research Laboratory from 1981 until moving to Sandia in 1984. He returned to Bell Laboratories in 1987 to become executive director of the Physics Research Division. In 1993 he became Physical Sciences Research Vice President, and in January 2000 became Vice President, Research. He retired from this position in September 2001. He then served as president of the American Physical Society and senior research associate in the Department of Physics at Princeton University until June 2009 when he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Director of the Office of Science in the United States Department of Energy. Overseeing the nation's research programs in fusion energy sciences and nuclear and high-energy physics, the Office is the country's single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences. He retired from the position in 2013. William Brinkman's personal research covered materials classes of great engineering significance such as metals, semiconductors, superconductors and liquid crystals. He contributed significantly in the understanding of correlated electron motion, electron-hole liquid formation, exotic superfluid states and defects in liquid crystals. His technical leadership for the development of Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) for high capacity communications systems and optical fiber fabrication has revolutionized long distance transmission. He has chaired many committees shaping the national policy for technology development and science. A contribution of singular importance is the 8 volume 1986 NRC "Brinkman Report" on the status of physics. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the American Physical Society. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2002.
 
 Name:  Dr. Peter B. Dervan
 Institution:  California Institute of Technology
 Year Elected:  2002
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  102. Chemistry and Chemical Biochemistry
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1945
   
 
Peter B. Dervan received a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1972. He joined the faculty of the California Institute of Technology in 1973 and is currently the Bren Professor of Chemistry. He served as chair of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, 1994-99. Peter Dervan is distinguished in the field of bioorganic chemistry for working out chemical principles for sequence-specific recognition of DNA. He created synthetic small molecules with affinities and sequence specificities for double-helical DNA comparable to nature's proteins that can be programmed to control gene expression in living cells. Dr. Dervan is the recipient of numerous awards, including the ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry (1985); the Arthur C. Cope Award (1993); the Willard Gibbs Medal (1993); the Nichols Medal (1994); the Maison de la Chimie Foundation Prize (1996); the Remsen Award (1998); the Kirkwood Medal (1998); the Alfred Bader Award (1999); the Max Tishler Prize (1999); the Linus Pauling Medal (1999); the Richard Tolman Medal (1999); the Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Chemistry (2000); the Harvey Prize (2002); the Ronald Breslow Award for Achievement in Biomimetic Chemistry (2005) and the National Medal of Science (2006). Dr. Dervan is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Institute of Medicine (NAS), the National Academy of Inventors, the French Academy of Sciences, and the Germany Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2002.
 
 Name:  Dr. Jerome I. Friedman
 Institution:  Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 Year Elected:  2002
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  106. Physics
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1930
   
 
Jerome I. Friedman received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1956. He was a research associate in physics at the University of Chicago and Stanford University before joining the faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1960, where he served as Institute Professor and Professor of Physics. He has also served as the director of MIT's Laboratory of Nuclear Science and head of the physics department. Jerome Friedman, along with Henry Kendall and Richard Taylor, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1990 for pioneering investigations of the inelastic scattering of electrons from protons. The experiments they performed provided the first evidence for the existence of quarks and the fact that their spin is one-half. Earlier, Friedman and Kendall had, independently, written computer programs which enabled this information to be extracted from the data, a problem with great technical complications, a real tour de force. Dr. Friedman is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2002.
 
 Name:  Dr. Sheldon Lee Glashow
 Institution:  Boston University
 Year Elected:  2002
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  106. Physics
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1932
   
 
Sheldon Lee Glashow is one of the formulators of the electroweak interaction theory. This theory unites the weak and electromagnetic interactions. This was the first such unification since Maxwell's electromagnetic theory unified the electric and magnetic forces in the 19th century. For this work Dr. Glashow, along with Weinberg and Salam, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1979. Dr. Glashow's work has continuously manifested an unusually high degree of originality. On purely theoretical grounds he was the first to conjecture the existence of the charmed quark, many years before it was discovered. Dr. Glashow is currently Arthur G.B. Metcalf Professor of Mathematics and the Sciences at Boston University, on whose faculty he has served since 1984. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1958 and previously taught at Harvard, Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.
 
 Name:  Dr. Thomas H. Jordan
 Institution:  Southern California Earthquake Center; University of Southern California
 Year Elected:  2002
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  105. Physical Earth Sciences
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1948
   
 
Thomas H. Jordan received his Ph.D. in geophysics and applied mathematics from the California Institute of Technology in 1972. He has taught at Princeton University, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He served as head of MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences from 1988-98. In 2000 he moved to the University of Southern California where he currently serves as University Professor of Earth Sciences. In 2002 he also became the Director of the Southern California Earthquake Center. Dr. Jordan is a geophysicist interested in the composition, dynamics, and evolution of the solid earth. His research concerns seismology, plate tectonics, the formation of continents, mantle structure, earthquakes and fault systems. He developed seismological techniques to make major discoveries about the three-dimensional structure of the earth's deep interior. He found that continental cratons have an underlying deep structure that translates with the continents during plate motions, and he discovered that lithospheric slabs penetrate deep into the lower mantle, demonstrating that the mantle convection system responsible for plate tectonics extends throughout the mantle. He has done seminal work on plate motions and plate-boundary deformations, slow earthquakes, and seafloor morphology. Dr. Jordan's contributions have been recognized with the James B. Macelwane Award from the American Geophysical Union in 1983, the George P. Woollard Award from the Geological Society of America in 1998, and the National Associate Award of the National Academy of Sciences in 2001. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2002.
 
 Name:  Dr. Paul B. MacCready
 Institution:  AeroVironment, Inc.
 Year Elected:  2002
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  103. Engineering
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1925
 Death Date:  August 28, 2007
   
 Name:  Dr. Marcia K. McNutt
 Institution:  National Academy of Sciences
 Year Elected:  2002
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  105. Physical Earth Sciences
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1952
   
 
Marcia K. McNutt received a B.A. in physics at Colorado College and a Ph.D. in Earth sciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1978. She was a geophysicist for the Branch of Tectonophysics of the U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park from 1979-82. In 1982 she joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, serving as the associate director of the SeaGrant College Program from 1993-95. For the next two years she directed the MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Joint Program in Oceanography. From 1997 to 2009 she directed the privately funded Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, serving as its president and chief executive officer. In 2009 President Obama nominated her to be the Director of the United States Geological Survey and her nomination was approved. She stepped down as Director of the USGS in February 2013 and returned to the west coast. In June 2013 she became Editor-in-Chief of "Science," the journals from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She was elected President of the National Academy of Sciences in 2016. In 2017 she was named the Desert Research Institute's Nevada Medalist. Marcia McNutt is an active student of the Earth's physical properties. She relies for her field and modelling work principally on geophysical data, some of which she has collected herself in the course of more than 20 oceanographic cruises using equipment she helped to design. Her studies have led to more than 90 papers in international refereed journals on such topics as convection in Earth's mantle, continental break-up, and the uplift of the Tibetan plateau. Dr. McNutt is the recipient of the Macelwane Medal and the Maurice Ewing Medal of the American Geophysical Union, the MIT School of Science Graduate Teaching Prize, and the Sanctuary Reflections Award of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. She was elected president of the American Geophysical Union in 2000-2002. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences and was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2002.
 
 Name:  Dr. John A. Orcutt
 Institution:  Center for Earth Observations and Applications, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego
 Year Elected:  2002
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  105. Physical Earth Sciences
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1943
   
 
John A. Orcutt received a B.S. at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1966, graduating 3rd in Class. He went to the University of Liverpool as a Fulbright Scholar and received an M.Sc. in 1968. He was the chief engineer of the nuclear submarine USS Kamehameha for the U.S. Navy, 1967-73. In 1976 he earned a Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego, and joined the faculty at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography as an assistant research geophysicist in 1977. Subsequently he became professor of geophysics and the director of the Cecil and Ida Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. He was the director of the UCSD Center for Earth Observations & Applications and deputy director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and is currently Professor of Geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Distinguished Researcher at the San Diego Supercomputer. John Orcutt has made major contributions in marine geophysics and particularly the elucidation of the volcanic mid-ocean ridges. He was the first to discover an active magma body beneath these ridges and his work led to the initiation of a major, continuing research program called RIDGE. He has taught an exceptional number of students in geophysics, and they have now assumed important leadership roles in the study of the oceans and the continents. He has played an important role monitoring the Earth for nuclear tests and is currently leading a new program to establish a permanent presence in the oceans for detecting changes in Earth systems. Dr. Orcutt has served as president of the American Geophysical Union and has received numerous awards, including the Newcomb-Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1980) and the Maurice Ewing Medal from the American Geophysical Union and U.S. Navy (1994). He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2002 and a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2011.
 
 Name:  Dr. Manuel Peimbert
 Institution:  Instituto de Astronomia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
 Year Elected:  2002
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  101. Astronomy
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1941
   
 
Manuel Peimbert is an outstanding research worker on gaseous nebulae and the abundances of the elements in the universe. An expert theorist and a practiced observer, he has combined his skills to analyze the structure, densities, temperatures, abundances, and other physical properties of nebulae. Dr. Peimbert has traced the effects of stellar evolution on the abundances of the elements in interstellar matter from which new stars are formed today. His careful studies of the He/H abundance ratio have helped to set narrower constraints on physical conditions for the "big bang." Dr. Peimbert is considered a world expert in his field and one of the most productive scientists in Mexico. His papers are widely quoted. He has been a professor at the Instituto de Astronomia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, since 1970.
 
Election Year
2002[X]