- Three from Stony Brook Elected AAAS Fellows for 2023 (2024)

Judi Brown Clarke, Richard Larson and Anatoly Frenkel of Stony Brook University have been elected as American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellows for 2023, a distinguished lifetime honor within the scientific community.

The 2023 Fellows class of 502 includes scientists, engineers, and innovators spanning all 24 of AAAS disciplinary sections who are being recognized for their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements. AAAS, one of the world’s largest general scientific societies and publisher of the Science family of journals,announced the new class of Fellows on April 18.

“This year’s class embodies scientific excellence, fosters trust in science throughout the communities they serve, and leads the next generation of scientists while advancing scientific achievements,” said Sudip S. Parikh, AAAS chief executive officer and executive publisher.

According to the Council of the AAAS, election as a Fellow honors “members whose efforts on behalf of the advancement of science, or its applications, are scientifically or socially distinguished.”

Clarke, Larson and Frenkel join the ranks of distinguished scientists, engineers, and innovators who have been recognized for their contributions in the areas of academia, research, and science communications. Notable AAAS Fellows include Thomas Edison, W.E.B DuBois and Irwin M. Jacobs.

Clarke, Stony Brook’s vice president for equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer, was honored in the Education section for distinguished contributions to the field of geoscience education research, policy, and service to diverse scholars in her advocacy for belonging, access, justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Throughout her career, Clarke has championed interdisciplinary research, mentored students and early career faculty, and advocated for resources to increase research, entrepreneurship, and economic development initiatives. She is co-chair of the Association Foundation on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, and serves as an external advisor on numerous research centers like the Center for Cellular Construction, Center for Nuclear Astrophysics across Messengers, and the Center for the Oldest Ice Exploration.

“I am both humbled and honored to be named a 2023 AAAS Fellow, recognizing my dedication to advancing science and research with a focus on inclusion and high performance,” Clarke said. “Being acknowledged among such esteemed leaders is an even greater honor and I am committed to continuing my pursuit of excellence in diversity and furthering a research mission that is equitable for all.”

Larson, a distinguished professor in the Department of Linguistics and president of the University Senate, was elected in the Linguistics and Language Science section for distinguished contributions to the fields of formal syntax and semantics, notably to their interaction, and for extraordinary devotion to the public dissemination of the science of language.

“Since its founding in 1848, the American Association for the Advancement of Science has been a key advocate for scientific research and collaboration, science policy, science education, and the dissemination of science in the United States,” Larson said. “It is a great honor to be nominated and elected as an AAAS Fellow. I am profoundly grateful to my nominators and to the society.”

“Richard Larson is among the most insightful and creative linguists in the field, and we are fortunate to have him in our Department,” said Francisco Ordóñez, professor and chair of the Department of Linguistics. “His contributions have been very impactful from the 1980s to the present. Larson has connected linguistics to other adjacent fields such as computer sciences and biology, and I cannot think of anyone who has been more committed to the promotion of linguistics as a science in education. On a personal level, he has been a great mentor, colleague and role model from the time I was a graduate student.”

Frenkel is a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering and is an affiliated faculty member with the Department of Chemistry and Institute for Advanced Computational Science. He is also jointly appointed as a senior chemist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He was recognized in the section of Chemistry for distinguished contributions to the development and applications of in situ and operando synchrotron methods to solve a wide range of problems in chemistry and materials science.

“It is an honor to have been nominated and elected to be an AAAS fellow,” said Frenkel. “This recognition reflects on more than two decades of work, going back to the time we first learned how to analyze nanostructures, then properties, and, finally, mechanisms in different types of functional nanomaterials.”

“Anatoly has been a valued member of our faculty,” said Dilip Gersappe, chair of Stony Brook University’s Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering. “And we are thrilled that his pioneering work in developing multi-modal methods for nanomaterial characterization, and the use of novel approaches to identifying spectroscopic signatures through machine learning, has been recognized by this honor.”

AAAS Fellows is celebrating its 150th year; it was launched in 1874, about 25 years after the association was founded. Election as a AAAS Fellow is a lifetime honor, and all Fellows are expected to maintain the highest standards of professional ethics and scientific integrity.

The new Fellows will receive a certificate and a gold and blue rosette pin (representing science and engineering, respectively) to commemorate their election and will be celebrated at a forum on September 21. That evening, AAAS will also celebrate the program’s 150th anniversary at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.