Last modified: Monday, April 30, 2007
IU's Linda Smith elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 30, 2007
Linda B. Smith, chair of Indiana University Bloomington's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Linda B. Smith, chair of Indiana University Bloomington' s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and noted early childhood development expert, was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, joining the ranks of Nobel and Pulitzer prize winners, presidents, authors and other influential thinkers from the U.S. and abroad, the Academy announced today (April 30).
Election to the Cambridge, Mass.-based academy recognizes the importance of an individual's contributions to an academic or professional field. This year's 203 new Fellows include former Vice President Albert Gore, Jr.; former Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor; filmmaker Spike Lee; and international public health leader Allan Rosenfield. The 24 Foreign Honorary Members include Israeli biochemist and Nobel laureate Avram Hershko; and Canadian Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella.
Smith has taught and conducted research at IUB since 1977. Her research seeks to understand the developmental process, and in particular the cascading interactions of perception, action, attention and language as children between the ages of 1 and 3 acquire their first language.
Smith's other awards include the Tracy M. Sonneborn Award, 1997; APA Award for Early Career Contribution, 1985; the National Institutes of Health Research Career Development Award, 1984-1989; the James McKeen Cattell Sabbatical Award, 1985; and election to the Society of Experimental Psychologists, 2006.
Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and other scholar-patriots, the Academy has elected as Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members influential leaders 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. 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.
Recent IU electees to the AAA&S include pianist Menahem Pressler, cellist Janos Starker, Metropolitan Opera alumna Martina Arroyo, and biologists Thomas Kaufman, Howard Gest, Rudolf Raff, Jeff Palmer and Michael Lynch.
For more information, contact Linda Hoke-Sinez at 812-855-8897 and lsinex@indiana.edu.
