Nine faculty elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Nine UC Berkeley faculty have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a time-honored, prestigious society that convenes leaders in academic, business and government sectors to solve critical national and global challenges. This year’s UC Berkeley honorees are:

Eric Brewer

Eric Brewer, professor emeritus of computer sciences and vice president of infrastructure at Google. He is widely considered among the most influential architects of the Internet, leading research on scalable servers, search engines, network infrastructure, sensor networks and security.

Bruce Buffett

Bruce Buffett, professor of earth and planetary science. Buffett researches the dynamics and evolution of planetary interiors, including mantle convection, plate tectonics and planetary dynamos.

James Demmel

James Demmel, professor and chair of electrical engineering and computer sciences and professor of mathematics. He is known for his innovative research in developing adaptive, high-performance linear algorithm software, and for his leadership in computational science and numerical algorithms.

Rosemary Gillespie

Rosemary Gillespie, professor of environmental science, policy and management. Her research looks at evolutionary patterns among populations and species, primarily in remote Pacific islands. Her recent studies looked at the invasion and evolution of stick spiders in the Hawaiian islands, and the evolution of a unique group of plants called silverswords.

Hilary Hoynes

Hilary Hoynes, professor of economics and of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy and the Haas Distinguished Chair in Economic Disparities. She specializes in the study of poverty, inequality, food and nutrition programs, and the impacts of government tax and transfer programs on low-income families.

Robert Levenson

Robert Levenson, professor of psychology. His areas of expertise include emotional regulation, marital relationships, aging and dementia. He is the principle investigator of several longitudinal San Francisco Bay Area studies.

Eliot Quataert

Eliot Quataert, professor of astronomy and of physics and director of UC Berkeley’s Theoretical Astrophysics Center. A theoretician, Quataert investigates a wide variety of problems, including black holes, stellar physics, plasma astrophysics and galaxy formation.

Dean Toste

Dean Toste, the Gerald E. K. Branch Distinguished Professor of Chemistry. Toste develops catalysts and catalytic reactions and methods for organic synthesis. Among other discoveries, he developed a system for condensing the products of bacterial fermentation into diesel-like molecules.

Birgitta Whaley

Birgitta Whaley, professor of chemistry and director of the Berkeley Quantum Information and Computation Center. Her work is broadly focused on quantum information and quantum computation, control and simulation of complex quantum systems, and quantum effects in biological systems.