University of Michigan: Four U-M faculty members to join American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Four University of Michigan faculty members have been named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for their significant contributions in scholarly and professional fields.
The academy has announced that U-M professors Nicholas Kotov, Khaled Mattawa, Vonnie McLoyd and Sijue Wu were among this year’s election of 261 new members. They continue a tradition of recognizing accomplishments and leadership in academia, the arts, industry, public policy and research.
“We are celebrating a depth of achievements in a breadth of areas,” said David Oxtoby, president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. “These individuals excel in ways that excite us and inspire us at a time when recognizing excellence, commending expertise and working toward the common good is absolutely essential to realizing a better future.”
Kotov is the Joseph B. and Florence V. Cejka Professor of Chemical Engineering. He is also the Irving Langmuir Distinguished University Professor of Chemical Sciences and Engineering. He is known for his body of work advancing biomimetic nanostructures for use as ultrastrongnanocomposites and battery components.
Mattawa is the William Wilhartz Professor of English Language and Literature. Among his collections of poetry are Fugitive Atlas (Graywolf Press, 2020), Tocqueville (New Issues, 2010), and Amorisco (Ausable, 2008). He has also translated many volumes of contemporary Arabic poetry and coedited two anthologies of Arab American literature.
McLoyd is the Ewart A.C. Thomas Collegiate Professor of Psychology. Her research investigates the role of parental behavior and family relations in two areas: as paths through which economic conditions such as poverty, parental job loss and parental work characteristics exert their influence on youth’s socioemotional adjustment; and as processes that protect youth from, or increase youth’s vulnerability to, the effects of experiences in peer and neighborhood contexts known to compromise socioemotional adjustment (e.g., neighborhood violence, peer victimization, racial discrimination).
Wu is the Robert W. and Lynn H. Browne Professor of Science and professor of mathematics. She was trained as a harmonic analyst, later on moved into the subject of nonlinear partial differential equations. She worked on nonlinear PDEs from fluid dynamics, including the Euler equations, the vortex sheets and water waves. Her current focus is on understanding the singularities in surface waves.
Founded in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences honors excellence and convenes leaders to examine new ideas, address issues of importance to the nation and the world, and advance the public good.