AUSTIN, Texas — Five University of Texas at Austin faculty members have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society, including four from the College of Natural Sciences and one from the College of Liberal Arts.
Fellows of the AAAS are elected by their peers in their areas of science in recognition of their scientifically or socially distinguished work to advance science or its applications. This year, 391 members have been awarded this honor by AAAS, an organization known for its publication of Science and other journals that reach nearly 10 million scientists worldwide.
The five UT Austin 2016 AAAS fellows have been elected from areas ranging from neuroscience to computer science and beyond:
- Inderjit S. Dhillon (Departments of Computer Science and Mathematics) For contributions to large-scale data analysis and computational mathematics.
- Kristen M. Harris (Department of Neuroscience) For outstanding contributions to understanding structural components involved in the cell biology of learning and memory, and to the professional development of women in neuroscience.
- Daniel Johnston (Department of Neuroscience) For distinguished contributions to the field of cellular neurophysiology, including insights into the dendritic integration and neuronal plasticity underlying memory and disease mechanisms.
- Mark Kirkpatrick (Department of Integrative Biology) For distinguished contributions to evolutionary theory and statistics, notably on sexual selection, speciation, function-valued traits, species ranges and chromosome structure.
- Anthony Di Fiore (Department of Anthropology) For distinguished contributions to the field of biological anthropology, particularly focused on models of primate behavioral ecology and the genetics of wild populations.
This year’s AAAS fellows will be formally announced in the AAAS News & Notes section of the journal Science on Nov. 25. New fellows will be inducted at a ceremony on Feb. 18, 2017, at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston, Mass.
