Nine Yale faculty elected members of American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Nine Yale faculty members were among more than 200 individuals elected as members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which celebrates compelling achievements in academia, business, government, and public affairs.

The new members, who include former First Lady Michelle Obama, author Jonathan Franzen, and actress and playwright Anna Deavere Smith, were announced by the academy April 17. They will be inducted at a ceremony in October in Cambridge, Mass.

The Yale faculty elected to the academy are:

Emily Bazelon, lecturer in law, senior research scholar in law, and Truman Capote Fellow in Law at Yale Law School

Bazelon is a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine and author of “Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy” and “Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution.”

Derek E.G. Briggs, the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Geology & Geophysics; curator in charge of invertebrate paleontology, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History

Briggs is a leading authority on fossils from the Burgess Shale of British Columbia, whose research has focused on the preservation and evolutionary significance of exceptionally preserved fossil biotas. His work has involved a variety of approaches, from experimenting with factors controlling decay and fossilization, through studies of early diagenetic mineralization and organic preservation, to fieldwork on a range of fossil occurrences.

Xiaohong Chen, the Malcolm K. Brachman Professor of Economics

Chen’s research focuses on econometric theory, semiparametric and nonparametric models and methods, sieve estimation and inference, and nonlinear time series.

Brad Inwood, professor of philosophy and classics

Inwood is a specialist in ancient philosophy with particular emphasis on Stoicism and the Presocratics. His major works include “Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism,” “The Poem of Empedocles,” “Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome,” “Seneca: Selected Philosophical Letters,” and “Ethics After Aristotle.”

Donald Margulies, adjunct professor of English and theater studies

A celebrated playwright, Margulies won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for “Dinner with Friends,” and was a finalist twice before for “Sight Unseen” and “Collected Stories.” His many other plays include “The Country House,” “Shipwrecked! An Entertainment,” “Brooklyn Boy,” the Tony Award-nominated “Time Stands Still,” and the Obie Award-winning “The Model Apartment.”

Tracey L. Meares, the Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law; founding director of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School

Meares is a nationally recognized expert on policing in urban communities, and her research focuses on understanding how members of the public think about the relationships with legal authorities such as police, prosecutors, and judges.

Konstantinos E.D. Meghir, the Douglas A. Warner III Professor of Economics

Meghir is a noted scholar on labor economics whose research expertise includes the economics of education, microeconometrics, evaluation of public policy, retirement and pensions, income distribution and development economics.

Paul E. Turner, the Elihu Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Turner studies the evolutionary genetics and genomics of viruses. His lab’s work has advanced the use of phage therapy, or the use of bacteria-killing viruses, to combat infections.

Steven I. Wilkinson, the Nilekani Professor of India and South Asian Studies; professor of political science and international affairs; incoming Henry R. Luce Director of the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale

Wilkinson’s research focuses on the causes of ethnic violence, corruption in politics, and civil-military politics in South Asia. He is the author of “Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India” and “Army and Nation: India’s Military and Democracy since Independence.”

Founded in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences honors exceptional scholars, leaders, artists, and innovators and engages them in sharing knowledge and addressing challenges facing the world.