Six Penn faculty elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Six Penn faculty were among the 252 inductees to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences this year. 

The Academy commends outstanding scholars, leaders, artists, and innovators for their work to address the world's most urgent challenges, Penn Arts & Sciences reported. 

One of the inductees, professor of Legal Studies and Philosophy Cristina Bicchieri, also serves as director of the Center for Social Norms & Behavioral Dynamics and founding director of the Master of Behavioral and Decision Sciences program at Penn. She was also elected to the German National Academy of Sciences. 

Bicchieri's research is in philosophy, game theory, and psychology with a focus on judgment, decision-making, social norms, and behavioral expectations, according to Penn Medicine News. 

Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science Michael Hanchard was another inductee to the Academy. He specializes in comparative politics and contemporary political theory, studying themes like nationalism and racism. 

Hanchard has authored several books, including his most recent, “The Spectre of Race: How Discrimination Haunts Western Democracy," Penn Arts & Sciences reported.

The Academy also recognized the work of Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering Vijay Kumar, who has appointments in the Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Computer and Information Science, and Electrical and Systems Engineering departments. 

Kumar’s internationally recognized research focuses on robot collaboration for tasks like counting oranges in an orchard or lifting a heavy payload, Penn Medicine News reported. 

Kumar has also been elected to the National Academy of Engineering and the American Philosophical Society.

Perelman School of Medicine professor Stanley Plotkin, another inductee, is a founding member of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society who focused his career around vaccination development. He is a fellow of the International Society for Vaccines, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. 

Professor of Genetics and Biology Sarah Tishkoff, another inductee, merges field, lab, and computational research to study human genetic diversity in African populations. She is also the director of the Penn Center for Global Genomics and Health Equity.  

Tishkoff has received the NIH Pioneer Award, David and Lucile Packard Career Award, Burroughs/Wellcome Fund Career Award, and American Society for Human Genetics Curt Stern Award. She is also a Penn Integrates Knowledge endowed chair and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

The final Penn affiliated inductee to the Academy was professor of Cell and Developmental Biology Kenneth Zaret, who also serves as the director of Penn's Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Zaret studies the role gene regulation plays in cell type control, with implications for therapeutics and experimental models of human disease. 

He received a MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health and the Stanley N. Cohen Biomedical Research Award. Zaret is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.