The 2024 recipient of the Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History is Darrin M. McMahon in recognition of his book Equality: The History of an Elusive Idea (Basic Books, 2023).  Darrin M. McMahon is currently Mary Brinsmead Wheelock Professor of History at Dartmouth College.  The 2024 Barzun Prize will be presented at the Society's November 2024 Meeting.  The full citation for the prize will be posted after the awards ceremony.

The selection committee consisted of Michael Wood (chair), Charles Barnwell Straut Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Princeton University; David Hollinger, Preston Hotchkis Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley; and Robert B. Pippin, Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor, Committee on Social Thought, Department of Philosophy, University of Chicago.

December 2023

Robert M. Solow (APS 1980) died on December 21, 2023, in Lexington, MA, at the age of 99. American economist and Nobel laureate whose work on the theory of economic growth culminated in the exogenous growth model named after him.

John G. A. Pocock (APS 1994) died on December 12, 2023, at the age of 99.  Pocock wove philosophy, political science, and history into a program in political and moral thought that Johns Hopkins University is known for today.

Edgar S. Woolard, Jr. (APS 1996) died on December 4, 2023, in Palm Beach Gardens, FL, at the age of 89. He was the former CEO and chair of DuPont who led the company through tremendous restructuring in the early 1990s.

Sandra Day O'Connor (APS 1992) died on December 1, 2023, in Phoenix, AZ, at the age of 93.  She was the first woman to serve as a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

November 2023

John L. Heilbron (APS 1990) died on November 5, 2023, in Padua, Italy, at the age of 89.  He was a historian of science whose books, including a biography of Galileo, helped to debunk several myths.

Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie (APS 1979) died on November 22, 2023, in  Paris, France, at the age of 94. He led a movement that rejected historiography’s traditional emphasis on great events and leaders in favor of mining the “mental universe” of peasants, merchants and clergymen.

October 2023

Hans E. Mayer (APS 1978) died on October 21, 2023, in Klausdorf, Germany, at the age of 91. Hans Mayer was an international expert on the history of the Crusades.

Natalie Zemon Davis (APS 2011) died on October 21, 2023, in Toronto, ON, at the age of 94.  She wrote of peasants, unsung women, border crossers and, most popularly, Martin Guerre, a 16th-century village impostor recalled in a 1980s movie.

Louise Glück (APS 2014) died on October 13, 2023, in Cambridge, MA, at the age of 80.  Acclaimed as one of America’s greatest living writers, she blended deeply personal material with themes of mythology and nature. She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2020.

September 2023

Gloria Ferrari Pinney (APS 2003) died on September 18, 2023, likely in Lawrenceville, NJ, at the age of 82.  She was an internationally renowned classical archaeologist and art historian.

Evelyn Fox Keller (APS 2006) died on September 22, 2023, in Cambridge, MA, at the age of 87.  A copy of the MIT obituary is pasted below.  She was a distinguished and groundbreaking philosopher and historian of science.

Victor R. Fuchs (APS 1990) died on September 16, 2023, in Palo Alto, CA, at the age of 99.  He demonstrated that the real problem facing the country was not health care coverage but health care costs; America, he said, was spending more and more without achieving better health outcomes.

August 2023

John Warnock (APS 2009) died on August 19, 2023, at the age of 82.  Dr. Warnock played a seminal role in the history of computing as co-founder and chief executive of Adobe Inc., helping create the Portable Document Format (PDF) and software that turned computers into digital printing presses, radically reshaping office life and publishing.

Richard M. Goody (APS 1997) died on August 3, 2023, in Cockeysville, MD, at the age of 102.  Dr. Goody spearheaded a program referred to as "Global Habitability" to examine the factors affecting the Earth's ability to sustain life, principally through biogeochemical cycles and climate.  He was described as "the grandfather of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program."

July 2023

Professor Laura Kiessling (APS 2017) joins the Advisory Board of RSC Chemical Biology

Ruth J. Simmons (APS 1997) named 2023 Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities

Former BBC director general Mark Thompson (APS 2017) knighted

Penn State chemist Stephen Benkovic (APS 2002) named Atherton Professor

Éva Tardos (APS 2020) has been awarded the Donald E. Knuth Prize

Rudy Marcus (APS 1990) celebrated his 100th birthday with a day of festivities at Caltech

Stephen M. Stigler (APS 2006) has published Casanova’s Lottery: The History of a Revolutionary Game of Chance

Patrick Spero (APS 2019) on panel to discuss The Founding Fathers’ Legacy Series: Unpacking the Complex Truth

APS member Lewis M. Branscomb (APS 1970) died on May 31, 2023, in Redwood City, CA, at the age of 96.  He was an American physicist, government policy advisor, and corporate research manager. He was best known for being head of the National Bureau of Standards and, later, chief scientist of IBM; and as a prolific writer on science policy issues.

APS member André Watts (APS 2020) died on July 12, 2023, in Bloomington, IN, at the age of 77.  With a performance career that spanned over 60 years, he was internationally celebrated as a musical and artistic legend.

June 2023

Elizabeth Anderson (APS 2021) and Alondra Nelson (APS 2020) have won the 2023 Sage-CASBS Award

Yo-Yo Ma (APS 1999) and Fabiola Gianotti (APS 2019) were featured on The Intersection by Nautilus

Philip Kitcher (APS 2018) has published What's the Use of Philosophy? which was featured on the Critical Theory Podcast

Glenn C. Loury (APS 2011) was featured as part of a roundtable on Afro Perspectives

The Brookings Institution announced that Cecilia Rouse (APS 2021) has been named its next president

Professor Viviana Zelizer (APS 2007) to receive highest award and a second major honor from the American Sociological Association

Dr. Ruth Simmons (APS 1997), esteemed academic leader and recognized champion for inclusion in education, has been elected to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Board of Directors. Simmons will join the Board for its June meeting.

APS member Donald D. Brown (APS 1981) died on May 31, 2023, in Baltimore, MD, at the age of 91.  His work revealed the fundamental nature of genes.

APS member Cormac McCarthy (APS 2012) died on June 13, 2023, in Santa Fe, NM, at the age of 89.  He was an American writer who authored twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays, and three short stories, spanning the Western and postapocalyptic genres.

APS member Henry Petroski (APS 2006) died on June 14, 2023, in Durham, NC, at the age of 81.  He wrote extensively about the design of buildings and bridges and how they failed. He also examined the history of commonplace objects like the pencil.

APS member Owen Gingerich (APS 1975) died on May 28, 2023, in Belmont, MA, at the age of 93.  He wrote and lectured widely, often on the theme that religion and science were not incompatible. He also chased down 600 copies of Copernicus’s landmark book.

May 2023

APS member Harald zur Hausen (APS 1998) died on May 28, 2023, in Heidelberg, Germany, at the age of 87.  He carried out research on cervical cancer and discovered the role of papilloma viruses in cervical cancer, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2008.

APS member James B. Hartle (APS 2016) died on May 17, 2023, in Switzerland, at the age of 83.  Hartle is known for his work in general relativity, astrophysics, and interpretation of quantum mechanics.

APS member Ludwig Koenen (APS 1991) died on May 9, 2023, in Ann Arbor, MI, at the age of 92.  He was a scholar of exceptional importance in papyrology and Greek literature and religion, a tireless and generous editor, advisor, and teacher, and a model of service to his department and his discipline.

APS member Robert E. Lucas, Jr. (1997) died on May 15, 2023, in Chicago, IL, at the age of 85.  A copy of the New York Times obituary is attached.  He was a Nobel laureate in economics who undergirded conservative arguments that government intervention in fiscal policy is often self-defeating.

April 2023

APS member James W. Valentine (APS 2009) died on April 7, 2023, in Berkeley, CA, at the age of 96. He was an American evolutionary biologist, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and curator at the University of California Museum of Paleontology.

March 2023

Robert J. Sampson (APS 2011) will be giving the 3rd Annual Ray Paternoster Memorial Lecture

Joanna Aizenberg (APS 2016) will deliver the 2023 Wallace H. Coulter Lecture at Pittcon.

Patrick Spero (APS 2019) to Helm the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon

Postal Service Celebrates Author Toni Morrison (APS 1994) on New Forever Stamp

Andrew Delbanco (APS 2013) comments on "Are the Humanities in Crisis?"

Matthew Desmond (APS 2022) has written the article "Why Poverty Persists in America" in anticipation of his new book "Poverty, by America"

Roy (APS 1993) And Diana Vagelos Give Columbia University $175 Million For Biomedical Research And Education

APS member Paul A. David (APS 2003) died on January 23, 2023, in Palo Alto, CA, at the age of 87.  A copy of the Stanford obituary is pasted below.  He was an economic historian at Stanford best known for his research on technological change and how it affects social and economic behavior.

APS member Francisco José Ayala (APS 1984) died on March 3, 2023, in Irvine, CA, at the age of 88.  He was a Spanish-American evolutionary biologist, philosopher, and former Catholic priest who was a longtime faculty member at the University of California, Irvine and University of California, Davis, though his career ended in controversy.

APS member Fedwa Malti-Douglas (APS 2004) died on February 17, 2023, in Rhinebeck, NY, at the age of 77.  She mapped the discourse of gender and letters in the Arab Middle East and applied her insights to American culture, for which she was awarded the  2014 National Humanities Medal.

APS member Gordon E. Moore (APS 2005) died on March 24, 2023, in Hawaii, at the age of 94.  He was an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and emeritus chairman of Intel Corporation. He proposed Moore's law, the observation that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles about every two years.

February 2023

Paul R. Ehrlich (APS 1990) has published Life: A Journey through Science and Politics

APS member Paul Berg (APS 1983) died on February 15, 2023, in Stanford, CA, at the age of 96.  He was a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist who ushered in the era of genetic engineering in 1971 by successfully combining DNA from two different organisms.

APS member Kent Greenawalt (APS 1992) died on January 27, 2023, in New York City, NY, at the age of 86.  His primary interests involved constitutional law, especially First Amendment jurisprudence, and legal philosophy.

APS member Helene L. Kaplan (APS 1990) died on January 26, 2023, in New York City, NY, at the age of 89.  She was the first woman to chair the board of Carnegie Corporation of New York.

January 2023

National Academy of Sciences has announced it will present its 2023 Public Welfare Medal to Freeman A. Hrabowski, III (APS 2003)

The following members have won 2023 awards from the Franklin Institute:

• Deb Niemeier (APS 2021), 2023 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science
• Kenneth C. Frazier (APS 2018), 2023 Bower Award for Business Leadership
• Richard N. Zare (APS 1991), 2023 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry
• Elaine Fuchs (APS 2005), 2023 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science

Hanna Holborn Gray (APS 1981) will accept the Legend in Leadership Award from the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute

Robert Miller (APS 2014) has recently published A Promise Kept: The Muscogee (Creek) Nation and McGirt v. Oklahoma with Robbie Ethridge

Vicki L. Chandler (APS 2015) was appointed to the National Science Board

APS member Christopher Walsh (APS 2003) died on January 10, 2023, in Cambridge, MA, at the age of 79.  He was an internationally respected and unconventional enzymologist who revolutionized the study of antibiotics, including antibiotic resistance and the natural production by living organisms of molecules that can become new medicines.

APS member Sir Anthony Wrigley (APS 2001) died on February 24. 2022, in Cambridge, UK, at the age of 90. Tony Wrigley was a distinguished historical demographer and co-founder of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure.

APS member Sir Peter Morris (APS 2002) died on October 29, 2022, in Witney, UK, at the age of 88. He was President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, founder of the Oxford Transplant Centre and director of the Centre for Evidence in Transplantation at the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

APS member Sir John Elliott (APS 1982) died on March 10, 2022, in Oxford, UK, at the age of 91.  He published a massive biography of a 17th-century Spanish statesman, Gaspar de Guzmán, the count-duke of Olivares.

APS member Hans Belting (APS 2005) died on January 10, 2023, in Berlin, Germany, at the age of 87.  He was a German art historian and theorist of medieval and Renaissance art, as well as a scholar of contemporary art and image theory.

The 2024 recipient for the Patrick Suppes Prize in the History of Science is Naomi Oreskes for her 2021 book Science on a Mission: How Military Funding Shaped What We Do and Don’t Know about the Ocean (University of Chicago Press).  Naomi Oreskes is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Science at Harvard University.  The prize will be presented at the Society's November 2024 Meeting.  The full citation for the prize will be posted at that time.

The selection committee was Angela N. H. Creager (chair), Thomas M. Siebel Professor in the History of Science, Chair, Department of History, Princeton University; Gordon Baym, Professor of Physics Emeritus, Research Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Adjunct Professor Emeritus, Niels Bohr Institute; Jed Buchwald, Doris and Henry Dreyfuss Professor of History, California Institute of Technology; Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Janice and Julian Bers Professor Emerita, History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania; Lorraine Daston, Professor, Director Emerita, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Visiting Professor of Social Thought and History, Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago; Susan Wolf, Edna J. Koury Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and the committee was selected by Richard Shiffrin, Distinguished Professor, Luther Dana Waterman Professor, Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science, Indiana University, who oversees the three Suppes Prizes.

The recipient of the 2024 Henry Allen Moe Prize in the Humanities or Jurisprudence is Jan M. Ziolkowski in recognition of his paper “The Juggler of Notre Dame and the Medievalizing of Modernity,” presented at the APS April 2019 Meeting and published in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 164. Jan Ziolkowski, Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Medieval Latin at Harvard University, was elected a member of the APS in 2017.  The prize will be presented at the Society's November 2024 Meeting.  The full citation for the prize will be posted at that time.

The selection committee was Linda Greenhouse, chair, Senior Research Scholar, Yale Law School; Michael McCormick, Goelet Professor of Medieval History, Harvard University; and Brent Shaw, Andrew Fleming West Professor of Classics Emeritus, Princeton University.

The recipient of the American Philosophical Society’s 2024 Karl Spencer Lashley Award is Margaret Livingstone, Takeda Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, in recognition of “fundamental discoveries concerning the organization and development of functionally specific processing pathways in the primate visual system.”  

The Karl Spencer Lashley Award was established in 1957 by a gift from Dr. Lashley, a member of the Society and a distinguished neuroscientist and neuropsychologist.  His entire scientific life was spent in the study of behavior and its neural basis.  Dr. Lashley’s famous experiments on the brain mechanisms of learning, memory and intelligence helped inaugurate the modern era of integrative neuroscience, and the Lashley Award recognizes innovative work that continues exploration in the field.

The members of the selection committee are William T. Newsome III (chair), Harman Family Provostial Professor, Vincent V. C. Woo Director of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute, Professor of Neurobiology and, by courtesy, of Psychology, Stanford University; John E. Dowling, Gordon and Llura Gund Research Professor of Neurosciences Emeritus, Harvard University; Catherine Dulac, Higgins Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Lee and Ezpeleta Professor of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, and Investigator for Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Ann M. Graybiel, Institute Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Investigator, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; John G. Hildebrand, Regents Professor of Neuroscience, University of Arizona; Eric Knudsen, Sewell Professor of Neurobiology Emeritus, Stanford University School of Medicine; Edvard Moser, Professor of Neuroscience, Director, Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Norwegian University of Science and Technology; and Larry R. Squire, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Neurosciences, and Psychology, University of California, San Diego, Research Career Scientist, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Diego.
 

The recipient of the 2024 Magellanic Premium Medal is Barbara J. Wold. The full citation and medal inscription will be posted after the medal is presented at the November 2024 meeting of the Society.

Barbara J. Wold, Bren Professor of Molecular Biology at Caltech, has been selected for the 2024 Magellanic Premium Medal in recognition of her central role in the development of methods and insights that have transformed our understanding of gene expression in biological systems. 

The award was established from a gift of 200 guineas by John Hyacinth de Magellan, of London, in 1786, “for a gold medal to be awarded from time to time under prescribed terms, to the author of the best discovery or most useful invention relating to navigation, astronomy, or natural philosophy (mere natural history only excepted).”  The medal, named the Magellanic Premium, was first awarded in 1790.   It is the oldest medal recognizing scientific achievements given by a North American institution.

The selection committee:  Helen Quinn (chair), Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Emerita, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University; Vicki L. Chandler, Provost and Chief Executive Officer, Minerva University; Sandra Faber, Professor Emerita, University of California, Santa Cruz, Astronomer Emerita, University of California  Observatories; Eric Horvitz, Chief Scientific Officer, Microsoft, Affiliate Associate Professor, Departments of Computer Science and Engineering, and of Biomedical and Health Informatics, University of Washington; Sara Seager, Professor of Planetary Science, Professor of Physics, Professor of Aerospace Engineering, Class of 1941 Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; David Tirrell, Provost, Carl and Shirley Larson Provostial Chair, Ross McCollum-William H. Corcoran Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology.

The Center for Native American and Indigenous Research supports community- and campus-based projects related to cultural and language vitality, Indigenous self-determination, and Native American and Indigenous Studies through a variety of funding opportunities. 

These include academic residential fellowships and internships based at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, as well as non-residential individual and group fellowships intended for community-oriented projects and goals. 

Eligibility is open to applicants anywhere in the world, although we are unable to offer visa sponsorship unless otherwise noted.

Funding At a Glance

CNAIR Fellowships

Postdoctoral Fellowship (Mellon/NASI)
This 9-month residential fellowship is intended for a recent doctoral graduate, a professor at any level seeking sabbatical support for a research project, or an independent postdoctoral scholar working closely with an Indigenous community on a project.

Award amount: 

• $50,000 stipend
• $20,000 to offset health insurance costs
• $5,000 travel/research fund
• $750 relocation

Application deadline: January 17, 2025

Predoctoral Fellowship (Mellon/NASI)
This 9-month residential fellowship is intended for an advanced doctoral degree student working toward the completion of the dissertation.

Award amount:

• $25,000 living stipend
• $10,000 to offset health insurance costs
• $5,000 travel/research fund 

Application deadline: January 17, 2025

Digital Knowledge Sharing Fellowship (Mellon/NASI)
These short-term fellowships support university- and community-based scholars and others working on digital projects that connect archives and Indigenous communities.

Award amount:

• $3,000 stipend
• Travel expenses to attend workshop in Philadelphia

Application deadline: March 3, 2025

CNAIR Internships

Summer Undergraduate Internship (Mellon/NASI)
These 8-week residential paid summer internships provide opportunities for undergraduates to conduct research, to explore career possibilities in archives and special collections, and to learn about advanced training in Native American and Indigenous Studies and related fields.

Award amount:

• $3,000 stipend
• Travel & lodging expenses

Application deadline: March 3, 2025

Indigenous Community Research Fund

Indigenous Community Research Fund
This fund supports travel for an individual or a group of people seeking to examine materials at the APS to further Indigenous community-based priorities. This program is for Indigenous community research by community members, such as elders, teachers, knowledge keepers, tribal officials, traditional leaders, museum and archive professionals, independent scholars, and others, regardless of academic background.

Award amount: variable

Applications accepted until funds are exhausted for the year

APS Grants & Fellowships

There are many additional grants and fellowships offered by the APS that could support Indigenous research. Several of these are highlighted below. Please visit our Grants and Fellowships pages for a full list of opportunities.

Highlights 

Short-Term Resident Research Fellowships

One- to three-month fellowships are available for Ph.D. candidates, holders of the Ph.D., and degreed independent scholars, within any field of study that requires using the collections of the APS's Library & Museum.

Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research

The Lewis and Clark Fund encourages exploratory field studies for the collection of specimens and data and to provide the imaginative stimulus that accompanies direct observation.

Phillips Fund for Native American Research

The Phillips Fund of the American Philosophical Society provides grants for research in Native American linguistics, ethnohistory, and the history of studies of Native Americans, in the continental United States and Canada.

The recipient of the 2023 Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History is Jared Farmer, in recognition of his book, Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees (Basic Books).  Dr. Farmer is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. The 2023 Barzun Prize was presented at the Society's November 2023 Meeting.

At the opening of his book Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees Jared Farmer suggests that his twin subjects are ‘curiosity and care’. Later he adds the word ‘mourning’, which he sees as ‘at root an act of care’. The pun is part of the project, a gesture towards the different kinds of attention humans have given to trees over time and because of time. ‘People cherish big trees, old trees, and especially big old trees. Except when they don’t’. Professor Farmer has in mind not only past and present worlds but ‘the next new world... when gardens must grow in our ruins’.

The book takes us on a series of extraordinary journeys. We learn about a sequence of tree species, from cedar to baobab; the long life of the yew in English graveyards; German explorations of Mexican dragon trees; lost tree worlds of Pacific countries; the fate of sequoias in the American West; the life and career of Edmund Schulman, ‘whose quest for arboreal longevity mirrored his academic precarity’; new discoveries of ancient life; ancient trees about to die.

Trees can always surprise us, Professor Farmer suggests. At any moment our sensibilities may be ‘staggered’ by ‘a threefold combination: size plus age plus rarity’. Playing with the familiar idea of a ‘long’ century - one that also occupies patches of the time before it and after it - Professor Farmer says his book ‘concerns the longest nineteenth century’, when consciousness was ‘pulled... far backward in linear time, and, simultaneously, when the energy transition to fossil fuels hurtled human impacts far into the future’. One of the many interesting implications of this perspective is that science finds itself merging with philosophy. ‘The category “oldest known” is less biological than epistemological - a subset of the oldest knowable trees... that can be absolutely dated all the way back to their first year of growth’. In this world, both more resilient and more endangered than we think, trees ‘have an ethical claim... Nothing could be more pragmatically sacred’. To respect this claim is to be what Professor Farmer calls ‘timeful’, meaning the opposite of what we also often are, obsessed with quantifying. ‘We store our quantifications in the cloud, and we continue to lose our planet’. On a similar perch between fear and wish he says, ‘I hope to say something hopeful, or at least anti-hopeless, about linear time’. Many of us will want to tell him that he more than amply succeeds.

The Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History is awarded annually to the author whose book exhibits distinguished work in American or European cultural history.  Established by a former student of Jacques Barzun, the prize honors this historian and cultural critic who was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1984.  

The selection committee consisted of Michael Wood (chair), Charles Barnwell Straut Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Princeton University; David Hollinger, Preston Hotchkis Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley; and Robert B. Pippin, Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor, Committee on Social Thought, Department of Philosophy, University of Chicago.