“We celebrate the achievement of each new member and the collective breadth and depth of their excellence — this is a fitting commemoration of the nation’s 250th anniversary,” said Academy President Laurie Patton. “The founding of the nation and the academy are rooted in the inextricable links between a vibrant democracy, the free pursuit of knowledge, and the expansion of the public good.”
The academy, chartered in 1780, was established to recognize accomplished individuals and engage them in addressing the greatest challenges facing the young republic. The first members elected to the academy include George Washington, who said — in his first annual message to Congress in 1790 — “Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.”
The Harvard inductees include
Ramesh Narayan Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences, Department of Astronomy, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Alan D. D’Andre Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Alvan T. and Viola D. Fuller American Cancer Society Professor of Radiation Oncology, HMS Radiation Oncology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Pediatric Oncology
Judy E. Garber Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Steven Levitsky David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies, Professor of Government, Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Department of Government, Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies
Lisa F. Berkman Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and of Epidemiology, Center for Population Studies, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Global Health and Population
Andrew D. Ho Charles William Eliot Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Khaled El-Rouayheb James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic and of Islamic Intellectual History, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Professor of Islamic Intellectual History, Director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program, Harvard College Professor, Affiliate of the Department of Philosophy, Near Eastern Languages, Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East
Tracey E. Hucks Victor S. Thomas Professor of Africana Religious Studies, Harvard Divinity School, Suzanne Young Murray Professor, Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Professor of African and African American Studies, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
The new class joins academy members elected before them, including Benjamin Franklin (elected 1781) and Alexander Hamilton (1791) in the 18th century; Ralph Waldo Emerson (1864), Maria Mitchell (1848), and Charles Darwin (1874) in the 19th; Albert Einstein (1924), Robert Frost (1931), Margaret Mead (1948), Milton Friedman (1959), Martin Luther King Jr. (1966), and Jacques Derrida (1985) in the 20th; and, in this century, Madeleine K. Albright (2001), Antonin Scalia (2003), Jennifer Doudna (2003), Esther Duflo (2009), John Legend (2017), Anna Deavere Smith (2019), Salman Rushdie (2022), Xuedong Huang (2023), and José Andrés (2025).
Induction ceremonies for new members will take place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in October.
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