Rice Professor Anthony Pinn has been elected to the nation’s foremost society of scholars, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Established by America’s founding fathers in 1780, the academy’s members have included Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
Pinn is among 252 new members announced April 22 by the academy, which honors the world’s most accomplished scholars, scientists, writers and artists as well as civic, business and philanthropic leaders.
Others in the academy’s Class of 2021 include Oprah Winfrey, civil rights activist and math literacy pioneer Robert Moses, neurosurgeon and TV medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, singer-songwriter Robbie Robertson of The Band and civil rights lawyer and scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw.