UC Berkeley historian Thomas Laqueur and chemist Paul Alivisatos have been elected to the American Philosophical Society, part of a 2015 class that includes such names as economist Thomas Piketty, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp.
Laqueur, the Helen Fawcett Distinguished Professor of History, focuses much of his research on Britain since 1509 and the social history of medicine. Alivisatos, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, holds appointments with UC Berkeley as the Samsung Distinguished Chair in Nanoscience and as a professor in the departments of materials science and chemistry.
The country’s first learned society, the American Philosophical Society aims to promote “useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, publications, library resources and community outreach.”
For the complete list of new members, see the
society’s website.