The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other Founding Fathers of the United States. It is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Edward Charles Pickering was an American astronomer and physicist and the older brother of William Henry Pickering. Along with Carl Vogel, Pickering discovered the first spectroscopic binary stars. He wrote Elements of Physical Manipulations.
Joel Asaph Allen was an American zoologist, mammalogist, and ornithologist. He became the first president of the American Ornithologists' Union, the first curator of birds and mammals at the American Museum of Natural History, and the first head of that museum's Department of Ornithology. He is remembered for Allen's rule, which states that the bodies of endotherms vary in shape with climate, having increased surface area in hot climates to lose heat, and minimized surface area in cold climates, to conserve heat.
William Henry Pickering was an American astronomer. Pickering constructed and established several observatories or astronomical observation stations, notably including Percival Lowell's Flagstaff Observatory. He led solar eclipse expeditions and studied craters on the Moon, and hypothesized that changes in the appearance of the crater Eratosthenes were due to "lunar insects". He spent much of the later part of his life at his private observatory in Jamaica.
The president of Harvard University is the chief administrator of Harvard University and the ex officio president of the Harvard Corporation. Each is appointed by and is responsible to the other members of that body, who delegate to the president the day-to-day running of the university.
Jared Sparks was an American historian, educator, and Unitarian minister. He served as President of Harvard College from 1849 to 1853.
Thomas Barbour was an American herpetologist. He was the first president of the Dexter School in 1926. From 1927 until 1946, he was director of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) founded in 1859 by Louis Agassiz at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Morrill Wyman was an American physician and social reformer. Best known today for his work on hay fever, he was one of the most respected doctors of his time, a social reformer, Harvard overseer, hospital president, and author in his long lifetime.
Henry Pickering Bowditch was an American soldier, physician, physiologist, and dean of the Harvard Medical School. Following his teacher Carl Ludwig, he promoted the training of medical practitioners in a context of physiological research. His teaching career at Harvard spanned 35 years.
Samuel Atkins Eliot was a member of the notable Eliot family of Boston, Massachusetts who served in political positions at the local, state and national levels.
Harvey Vernon Fineberg is an American physician. A noted researcher in the fields of health policy and medical decision making, his past research has focused on the process of policy development and implementation, assessment of medical technology, evaluation and use of vaccines, and dissemination of medical innovations. Fineberg has held several prominent positions over the course of his career, including Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, Provost of Harvard University, and President of the Institute of Medicine, now the National Academy of Medicine.
Benjamin Pickman Jr. was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts.
Henry Ingersoll Bowditch was an American physician and a prominent Christian abolitionist. Bowditch was born on August 9, 1808, in Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Bowditch, a renowned mathematician. He graduated from Harvard College in 1828, earned his medical degree there in 1832, and afterwards studied medicine in Paris for 2 years with leading physicians of the day. From 1859 to 1867 Bowditch was Jackson professor of clinical medicine at Harvard; he later founded the Massachusetts State Board of Health. Bowditch was a fellow of the American Academy of Public Health and wrote a seminal textbook on the subject; Public hygiene in America
Diana Chapman Walsh was President of Wellesley College from 1993 to 2007. During her tenure, the college revised its curriculum and expanded its programs in global education, internships and service learning, and interdisciplinary teaching and learning. The faculty established new majors in environmental studies, quantitative reasoning, cinema and media studies, neurosciences, and astrophysics. Japanese, Arabic and Korean languages were added to the curriculum as well, and a new department of East Asian Languages and Literatures was launched.
Reuben Dimond Mussey, Sr. was an American physician, surgeon, vegetarian and an early opponent of tobacco. He was the fourth president of the American Medical Association.
Charles Pickering Bowditch was an American financier, archaeologist, cryptographer and linguistics scholar who specialized in Mayan epigraphy.
James M. Stone is an American business executive. Jim Stone is the founder of Boston-based Plymouth Rock Assurance Corporation and chief executive of its parent company, The Plymouth Rock Company. Stone was a Lecturer in Economics at Harvard University in the early 1970s and then was the Massachusetts Commissioner of Insurance from 1975 to 1979. He was appointed chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission by President Jimmy Carter, and served on the Commission until 1983. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Columbus O'Donnell Iselin (1904–1971) was an American oceanographer. He was the director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution from 1940 to 1950, and from 1956 to 1960. He was Professor of Physical Oceanography at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Louise Marie Ryan is an Australian biostatistician, a distinguished professor of statistics in the School of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney, president-elect of the International Biometric Society, and an editor-in-chief of the journal Statistics in Medicine. She is known for her work applying statistics to cancer and risk assessment in environmental health.
John Pickering was an American linguist, politician, and lawyer. He was president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, from 1839 to 1846. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society. He is buried at Broad Street Cemetery.
