Photo: Doug Koch,
University of Kansas
Kansas City, Mo. (April 24, 2006) – Scott
Hawley, Ph.D., Investigator, has been elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Academy
announced 175 new Fellows and 20 new Foreign Honorary
Members today.
Dr. Hawley becomes the Institute’s fourth member
elected to the Academy, joining Investigators Joan
Conaway, Ph.D., and Ron Conaway, Ph.D. (elected in
2002); and Robb Krumlauf, Ph.D. (elected in 2003). Drs.
Conaway were the first Kansas City residents elected to
the Academy in its 222-year history.
“I can’t overstate the significance of this
announcement for Kansas City, the Stowers Institute, and
especially, Dr. Hawley,” said William B. Neaves, Ph.D.,
President and CEO. “Jim and Virginia Stowers have
created an environment at the Stowers Institute that
attracts scientists who can be counted among the
brightest intellects in America’s history. Dr. Hawley is
certainly worthy of this recognition, and we are proud
of his many achievements.”
Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin,
John Hancock and other scholar-patriots, the Academy 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 eighteenth century, Daniel Webster and Ralph
Waldo Emerson in the nineteenth, and Albert Einstein and
Winston Churchill in the twentieth.
The current membership includes more than 170
Nobel laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners.
Functioning as an independent policy research center,
the Academy undertakes studies of complex and emerging
problems facing society. Current research at the Academy
focuses on science and global security; social policy;
the humanities and culture; and education.
Dr. Hawley, a renowned genetics researcher,
leads a team of 17 scientists who study the mechanisms
by which cells transmit genetic information during
routine cell division (mitosis) and during the process
of creating gametes (meiosis). Many cancer cells gain or
lose chromosomes during abnormal cell divisions that
accompany malignant transformation. A clearer view of
how chromosomes are properly transmitted during cell
division has direct implications for understanding
cancer.
In addition to his appointment at the Stowers
Institute, Dr. Hawley holds the prestigious designation
of American Cancer Society Research Professor. He is
also Professor of Physiology at the University of Kansas
School of Medicine and Adjunct Professor at the
University of Missouri at Kansas City. He holds a B.S.
in Biology from the University of California at
Riverside and a Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of
Washington, Seattle.
Other notable elected Fellows this year include
former Presidents George H.W. Bush and William Jefferson
Clinton; Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts; Nobel
Prize-winning biochemist and Rockefeller University
President Sir Paul Nurse; the chairman and vice chairman
of the 9/11 commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton;
actor and director Martin Scorsese; choreographer
Meredith Monk; conductor Michael Tilson Thomas; and New
York Stock Exchange chairman Marshall Carter along with
leading scientists and scholars from across the nation.
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