Carroll Joins American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Contact: Philip Montgomery
Phone: 713-831-4792

Carroll Joins American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences
accepted Michael Carroll, dean of the School of Engineering at Rice
University, as a fellow for his contributions to engineering.

His election on April 12 was based on his contributions to exact
solutions in nonlinear elasticity and nonlinear mechanical and
electromagnetic wave propagation and the Carrol-Holt theory of
dynamic compaction of porous materials, said James Kinsey, dean of
the Wiess School of Natural Sciences at Rice.

The Academy will induct Carroll, the Burton J. and Ann M.
McMurtry Professor in Mechanical and Computational and Applied
Mathematics, at a ceremony in Cambridge, Mass., this fall.

“I was very please and very honored,” said Carroll. “It’s a
wonderful academy and nice to be recognized,” and he added “I know a
lot of the freshman class.”

Other members of the freshman class who will be inducted into
the Academy along with Carroll are Neal Lane, former provost for
Rice and now the head of the National Science Foundation, and Bill
Russel ’68, professor and chairman of department of chemical
engineering at Princeton University.

“This is a well-deserved and long overdue honor for Mike,” said
Kinsey, who nominated Carroll to be a fellow of the academy. “His
distinction as a published poet and playwright was also noted. The
American Academy of Arts and Sciences is the oldest of the
prestigious academies in this country. It is an honor comparable to
the National Academy of Engineering or the National Academy of
Sciences.”

The Academy is a learned society founded in 1780 that now has
about 3,300 fellows and 550 foreign honorary members.

It serves a dual function: to honor achievement in science,
scholarship, the arts, and public affairs and to conduct a varied
program of studies that reflects the interest of its members and is
responsive to the needs and problems of society and of the
intellectual community.

Carroll said that because the Academy conducts studies for the
government having fellows from Rice puts the university in a
position to influence the studies. He added that participation is
important on two levels: in the works of the academy-which can
influence public policy in such areas as basic research-and in
recognition of senior faculty fellows.

Carroll is also a fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics
and American Society of Mechanical Engineers as well as a member of
the National Academy of Engineering and other organizations.

Rice University is an independent, coeducational, nonsectarian
private university dedicated to undergraduate teaching and graduate
studies, research and professional training in selected disciplines.
It has an undergraduate student population of 2,584, a graduate and
professional student population of 1,489 and a full-time faculty of
448.

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