Ó³»­´«Ã½

Join us in congratulating David Altshuler, chief academic officer and deputy director of the Ó³»­´«Ã½, on his election to the . As a member, he joins some of the world’s most accomplished leaders from academia, business, public affairs, the humanities, and the arts, including Ó³»­´«Ã½ director Eric Lander and institute founder Eli Ó³»­´«Ã½.

Altshuler, a clinical endocrinologist and human geneticist, is a founding core member of the Ó³»­´«Ã½ and has directed the Ó³»­´«Ã½â€™s Program in Medical and Population Genetics since 2003. In 2009 he was named the Ó³»­´«Ã½â€™s first chief academic officer.

Altshuler has been on the faculty of Harvard since 2000 and is currently a professor of genetics and medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a professor in the Department of Molecular Biology, the Diabetes Unit of the Department of Medicine, and the Center for Human Genetic Research, all at Massachusetts General Hospital. Altshuler is also an adjunct professor of biology at MIT.

One of the nation's most prestigious honorary societies, the Academy of Arts and Sciences is also a leading center for independent policy research. Members contribute to Academy publications and studies of science and technology policy, energy and global security, social policy and American institutions, and the humanities, arts, and education.

"Election to the Academy honors individual accomplishment and calls upon members to serve the public good," said Academy President Leslie C. Berlowitz. "We look forward to drawing on the knowledge and expertise of these distinguished men and women to advance solutions to the pressing policy challenges of the day."

The list of the new members is located at . The new class will be inducted at a ceremony on October 12, 2013, at the Academy's headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Since its founding in 1780, the Academy has elected leading "thinkers and doers" from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the eighteenth century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the nineteenth, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the twentieth. The current membership includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.