GRAND RAPIDS – Van Andel Research Institute Director George Vande Woude has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. One of the world?s most renowned experts in molecular oncology, Vande Woude was appointed as the inaugural director of VARI in 1999 following a 28-year tenure with the National Cancer Institute as director of research programs.
The Academy will welcome this year’s new class at the annual Induction Ceremony on October 7 at its headquarters in Cambridge, Mass. Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members are nominated and elected to the Academy by its current members, comprised of scholars and practitioners from mathematics, physics, biological sciences, social sciences, humanities and the arts, public affairs and business.
“This is a wonderful honor for our director of research and for the Van Andel Institute,” said VAI Chairman and CEO David Van Andel. “It is truly a reaffirmation of the world-class standing George enjoys within the scientific community.”
The 195 scholars, scientists, artists, civic, corporate and philanthropic leaders come from 24 states and 13 countries, and range in age from 37 to 83. More than 60 universities, a dozen corporations, as well as museums, research institutes, media outlets and foundations are represented among this year?s newly elected members.
This year’s new Fellows include former Presidents George H.W. Bush and William Jefferson Clinton; Chief Justice John Roberts; Nobel Prize-winning biochemist and Rockefeller University President Sir Paul Nurse; the chairman and vice chairman of the 9/11 commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton; actor and director Martin Scorsese; choreographer Meredith Monk; conductor Michael Tilson Thomas; and New York Stock Exchange Chairman Marshall Carter.
“It gives me great pleasure to welcome these outstanding leaders in their fields to the Academy,” said Academy President Patricia Meyer Spacks. “Fellows are selected through a highly competitive process that recognizes individuals who have made preeminent contributions to their disciplines and to society at large.”
Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and other scholar-patriots, the Academy has elected as Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members the finest minds and most influential leaders from each generation, including George Washington and Ben 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 170 Nobel laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners. An independent policy research center, the Academy undertakes studies of complex and emerging problems. Current Academy research focuses on science and global security; social policy; the humanities and culture; and education.
