The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) has elected five members from New York University as fellows: Robert Berne, NYU s senior vice president for health and a professor at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service; Michael John Laver, a professor in the Wilf Family Department of Politics; Theodor Meron, a professor emeritus in NYU s School of Law; J. Anthony Movshon, a professor of neural science and psychology; and Matthew S. Santirocco, dean of NYU s College of Arts and Science and a professor of classics.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) has elected five members from New York University as fellows: Robert Berne, NYU’s senior vice president for health and a professor at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service; Michael John Laver, a professor in the Wilf Family Department of Politics; Theodor Meron, a professor emeritus in NYU’s School of Law; J. Anthony Movshon, a professor of neural science and psychology; and Matthew S. Santirocco, dean of NYU’s College of Arts and Science and a professor of classics.

The five are among 210 new Fellows and 19 new foreign honorary members elected. Other new fellows include: biographer Robert Caro; U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; singer/songwriter Emmylou Harris; and National Public Radio journalist Susan Stamberg.

AAAS will welcome this year’s fellows at an induction ceremony on Oct. 10 at the academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A complete list of the new members is available at: http://www.amacad.org/enewsletter/a.pdf

Berne, a scholar of public education policy and financing, furnished expert analysis and testimony in the landmark school finance case, CFE v. the State of New York. He has authored The Relationships Between Financial Reporting and the Measurement of Financial Condition and co-authored The Measurement of Equity in School Finance, Hard Lessons: Public Schools and Privatization, and The Financial Analysis of Governments. As senior vice president for health, Berne is responsible for working with deans and other university leaders on long-term academic, financial, and operational strategies for the wide range of health activities at NYU.

Laver is a renowned analyst of party competition and the politics of government formation. His books include: The Politics of Private Desires; Multiparty Government; and Making and Breaking Governments. He served as sole political scientist on the Irish Constitution Review Group, whose work led to reforms in the Irish Constitution, and as an advisor to both an all-party committee seeking reforms to the Irish Senate and a government-appointed commission evaluating the introduction of electronic voting in Ireland.

Meron, the Charles L. Denison Professor of Law Emeritus and a judicial fellow at NYU’s School of Law, is a leading scholar of international humanitarian, human rights, and international criminal law. He was the president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) until 2005 and also served as a judge in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Meron, whose published works include International Law in the Age of Human Rights and The Humanization of International Law, is currently a judge on the ICTY’s Appeals Chamber.

Movshon, director of NYU’s Center for Neural Science, is best known for his path-breaking work on how the brain encodes and decodes visual information and in the mechanisms that put that information to use in the control of behavior. A faculty member in the Department of Psychology, Movshon is a former Howard Hughes Investigator and an adjunct professor at NYU Langone Medical Center. At NYU, he is a Silver Professor, a designation given to outstanding scholars in NYU’s Faculty of Arts and Science.

Santirocco, who is also the Angelo J. Ranieri Director of Ancient Studies and associate provost for undergraduate academic affairs at NYU, maintains research interests in Latin literature, Greek poetry, and the classical tradition. His publications include a book on Latin lyric poetry (Unity and Design in Horace’s Odes), edited volumes of essays on the classical tradition (Latinitas: The Tradition and Teaching of Latin), and Horace (Reconsidering Horace), as well as many scholarly articles.

Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and others, AAAS 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 18th century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the 20th.

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