Rice biologists elected fellows of American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Rice biologists elected fellows of American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Strassmann, Queller among the scholars, artists, civic and corporate leaders selected

BY JADE BOYD
Rice News staff

Rice University evolutionary biologists Joan Strassmann and David Queller have been elected fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences — one of the highest forms of recognition a scholar can receive.

	JOAN STRASSMANN & DAVID QUELLER

The academy is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and independent policy research centers. The 2008 class of 190 fellows and 22 foreign honorary members includes Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners and recipients of Academy and Grammy awards. The class also includes James A. Baker III, honorary chairman of Rice’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

Strassmann and Queller are well-known for their pioneering studies on the evolution of sociality, cooperation and conflict. The focus of their current work is the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. Strassmann, the Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor in Natural Sciences and chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, joined Rice in 1980. Queller, the Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, joined Rice in 1984.

The academy’s 2008 class of fellows also includes U.S. Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice John Paul Stevens; soprano Dawn Upshaw; Nobel laureate Linda Buck, who discovered a molecular understanding of the sense of smell; computer company founder Michael Dell; astronomer Adam Riess, who contributed to the discovery of dark energy; electrical engineer Henry Smith, the father of X-ray lithography; Academy Award-winning filmmakers Ethan and Joel Cohen and Milos Forman; and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Edwards P. Jones.

Foreign honorary members in this year’s class include former Chief Justice of South Africa Arthur Chaskalson; Nobel Prize-winning Israeli biologist Aaron Ciechanover; Novartis International Chairman and CEO Daniel Vasella; and Spanish film director, producer and screenwriter Pedro Almod