IAS Distinguished Scholars Past Scholars

Prof. Francesco P. Andriulli, IAS Distinguished Scholar for the academic year 2021/2022, is a professor in the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications at the Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy. Prof. Andriulli holds a Laura in Electrical Engineering (2004) from the Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy, an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (2004) from the University of Illinois at Chicago, Illinois, USA, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (2008) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan USA. Prof. Andriulli served as principal investigator on eight national and international projects, currently he is the PI of the European Research Council CoG project, an ERC Consolidator Grant. Prof. Andriulli is a member of Eta Kappa Nu (the international honor society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), Tau Beta Pi Association, Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, the International Board of European School of Antennas and of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI). Awards: the ERC grant of the European Union (2016), the EurAAP Leopold B. Felsen Award for Excellence in Electrodynamics (2015), the URSI Issac Koga Gold Medal (triennium 2014-2016) and the IEEE AP-S Donald G. Dudley Undergraduate Teaching Award (2014) and more. Prof. Andriulli has published more than 50 papers published in international ISI journals and 90 papers in peer-reviewed conference proceedings. He is the recipient of more than 15 awards and distinctions for scientific publications. In addition, Prof. Andriulli is the Editor-in-Chief of the magazine IEEE Antennas and Propagation, he serves as a track editor for the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, and as an associate editor for the journals IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, IEEE Access, URSI Radio Science Letters and IET Microwaves, Antennas and Propagation. He also serves as the reviewer of 19 scientific journals. Prof. Andriulli’s research interests are in computational electromagnetics with a focus on frequency- and time-domain integral equation solvers, well-conditioned formulations, fast solvers, low-frequency electromagnetic analyses, and modeling techniques for antennas, wireless components, microwave circuits, and biomedical applications with a special focus on Brain Imaging.

Prof. Robin L. Blumberg Selinger, IAS Distinguished Scholar 2021/2022, is a professor of Physics at the Department of Physics and the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, at Kent State University, Kent, USA. Prof. Selinger holds an A.B. (cum laude, 1984), an A.M. (1986) and a Ph.D. (1989) in Physics from Harvard University, Cambridge, USA. She conducted postdoctoral research in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA. (1989-1992); at the Institute for Physical Science and Technology at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA. (1992-1994); and she served as an NRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA (1994-1995). In 1996, she was appointed assistant professor at the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C, USA., where she also served as associate professor (1996-2005). She was for a year a sabbatical visitor at the Naval Research Laboratory, USA (2002-2003). In 2005, Prof. Selinger joined the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute of Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, USA., where she serves also as a professor of Physics. Prof. Selinger was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2016. She currently serves as an elected member of the APS Council and the APS Board of Directors. She also serves as a speaker-elect of the APS Council and will serve as a speaker of the Council in 2022. Prof. Selinger’s research interests lie in theoretical/computational studies in liquid crystals and other soft materials. She works with molecular scale, mesoscale, and continuum simulation techniques, and a major unifying theme throughout her research is the study of topological defects and their role in transport, microstructure, and shape evolution.

Prof. Jörg Enderlein, IAS Distinguished Scholar 2021/2022, is a professor in Biophysics at the Third Institute of Physics (Biophysics) of the Georg August University of Göttingen, Germany. Prof. Enderlein studied Physics at the Odessa I. I. Mechnikov National University, Odessa, Ukraine (1981-1986), and earned a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany (1991). He then worked as a researcher at the company PicoQuant GmbH, Berlin, Germany (1991-1996). In 1996, he earned the fellowship of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and was a one-year postdoctoral fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA (1996-1997). In 1997, he was appointed assistant professor (C1) at the University of Regensburg, Germany (1997-2000). In 2000, he received his habilitation in Physical Chemistry from the University of Regensburg. In 2001, he won the Heisenberg fellowship of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and joined the Jülich Research Center, Germany, as a group leader (2001-2006). He then served for one year as a full professor of Biophysical Chemistry at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Germany (2007-2008). In 2008, he was appointed full professor for Biophysics at the Third Institute of Physics (Biophysics) of the Georg August University of Göttingen, Germany, where he serves until today (2008-present). At the Georg August University of Göttingen, he also served as director (2010-2020) of the Third Institute of Physics (Biophysics ) and as dean of the Faculty of Physics (2019-2020). Prof. Enderlein is a member of the German Physical Society, the German Biophysical Society, and of the Biophysical Society. He is the founding editor-in-chief of the journal Biophysical Reports of the Biophysical Society. Prof. Enderlein’s research is focused on Single Molecule Spectroscopy and Super-Resolution Microscopy, from basic aspects to biophysical applications. However, the scope of his interests is much wider, from crystallography, hydrodynamics and electrodynamics, to general relativity.

Prof. Abigail E. Gillman, IAS Distinguished Scholar for the academic year 2021/2022, is a professor of Hebrew, German, and Comparative Literature in the Department of World Languages and Literatures at Boston University, Boston, USA, and Core Faculty of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies. Prof. Gillman’s scholarship focuses on Jewish literature and the culture of the German-speaking world. She is the author of two books: “Viennese Jewish Modernism: Freud, Hofmannsthal, Beer-Hofmann and Schnitzler” (Penn State Press, 2009) and “A History of German Jewish Bible Translation” (University of Chicago Press, 2018). She has published and lectured on Kafka; Jewish Modernism; Jewish Translation History; Aharon Appelfeld; and Holocaust Memory. Her essay “Martin Buber’s Message to Postwar Germany” won the 2015 Egon Schwarz Prize for an Outstanding Essay in the Area of German Jewish Studies. Prof. Gillman also serves as an editor for Modern Judaism of the “Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception” (De Gruyter). Prof. Gillman’s current research project, titled “Parabolic Style Across Jewish Literature,” is a literary-historical study that traces the influence of the religious parable (mashal) upon diverse authors and movements. This project aims to challenge the religious/secular divide by drawing popular attention to a dialogue already underway between contemporary, postmodern writers and an ancient genre for transmitting wisdom about right action.

Prof. Michael Glanzberg, IAS Distinguished Scholar for the academic year 2021/2022, is a professor in the Department of Philosophy, and a member of the Executive Council and affiliate faculty of the Center for Cognitive Science at Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA. Prof. Glanzberg graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy and Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA (1987), an M.A. in Mathematics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA (1989), and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Harvard University, Cambridge, USA (1997) under Charles Parsons and Warren Goldfarb. He held several positions in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), Cambridge, USA. Then he served for one year as an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, Canada (2003-2004). In 2004, he was appointed associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Davis, USA, and where he held the positions of member of the Linguistics Graduate Group (2006-2011) and professor (2008-2011). In 2011, he joined Northwestern University, Evanston, USA, where he served as a professor in the Department of Philosophy (2011-2020), as well as affiliate faculty in the Cognitive Science Program (2011-2020), and Linguistics (2013-2020). Since 2020, he is a professor in the Department of Philosophy (2020-present) at Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA. Since 2021, he is a member of the Executive Council and an affiliated faculty of the Center for Cognitive Science at Rutgers University (2021-present). Prof. Glanzberg is the co-author (with Jc Beall and David Ripley) of the book “Formal Theories of Truth” (Oxford University Press, 2018), and the editor of the “Oxford Handbook of Truth” (Oxford University Press, 2018). Prof. Glanzberg’s research is mainly in the areas of philosophy of language and logic, with strong connections to metaphysics and philosophy of psychology and cognitive science. In the philosophy of language, he has focused on such topics as the nature of linguistic meaning and the way meanings connect to concepts and cognition, the ways meaning and context of utterance interact, the interface between semantics, pragmatics, and syntax, and the role of mathematical techniques in the empirical study of language. In philosophical and mathematical logic, he has worked extensively on issues related to truth and paradox, and the status of unrestricted quantification.

Prof. Jan Grabowski, IAS Distinguished Scholar 2021/2022, is a professor of History at the University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada. Prof. Grabowski graduated with an M.A. in History from the University of Warsaw, Poland (1986) and with a Ph.D. in History from the University of Montreal, Canada (1994). In 1993, he joined the University of Ottawa, Canada, as an assistant professor of History (1993-2001). At the University of Ottawa, he then served as an associate professor of History (2001-2009), chair of the Department of History (2005-2008), and he presently holds the position of full professor of History (2009-present). Prof. Grabowski is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2020, Prof. Grabowski has been appointed a distinguished fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich, Germany. He also received the 2019 Arie van Mansum Annual Award for the outstanding Holocaust Educator. Prof. Grabowski is the Founding Member of the Polish Centre for Holocaust Research, an academic and research center at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland (2005-2019). Prof. Grabowski is the author of eight books and 41 peer-reviewed articles. His book “Hunt for the Jews. Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland” (Indiana University Press, 2013), has been awarded the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for 2014. In 2018, he co-edited and co-authored “Dalej jest noc” (a two-volume study of the fate of the Jews in selected counties of occupied Poland), to be published later this year in English. His most recent book “On Duty. The Role of the Polish “Blue” Police in the Holocaust” (“Na Posterunku. Udział Polskiej Policji Granatowej i kryminalnej w Zagładzie Żydów”, Czarne Publishing House), has been published in Poland, in March 2020. Prof. Grabowski’s research includes the issues surrounding the extermination of the Polish Jews as well as the history of Jewish-Polish relations during the 1939-1945 period.

Prof. Tom Gunning, IAS Distinguished Scholar for the academic year 2022/2023, is Professor Emeritus of Art History, Cinema and Media Studies, and the College, at the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Prof. Gunning holds a B.A. in History and Literature of Religion (1970) from Washington Square College, New York University, New York, USA. He received an M.A. (1974) and a Ph.D. (with honors, 1986) in Cinema Studies from the Graduate School of Arts and Science, New York University. His Ph.D. dissertation on “D.W. Griffith and the Narrator-System: Narrative Form and Industry Organization in Biograph Films, 1908-1909” received the Society for Cinema Studies Best Dissertation Prize (1987). He also held visiting professor appointments at leading institutions, among them: New York University, New York, USA; Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA; the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, USA; the University of Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden. which granted him an Honorary Doctorate in 1998; and the University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2010). He received several prestigious awards and grants: The SCMS Award Ceremony Distinguished Career Award (2015), the Mellon Distinguished Service Award (2009-2011); the Jean Mitry Prize, Giornate del Cinema Muto (2004); the First Cinéma & Cie Book Award for his book “The Films of Fritz Lang: Allegories of Vision and Modernity” (2003); Anthology Film Archive Film Preservation Honor (2000); the Guggenheim Fellowship (1998); and his book “D.W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film” received the Theater Library Association Award (1992). Prof. Gunning works on problems of film style and interpretation, film history and film culture. His published work, approximately one hundred publications, has concentrated on early cinema, from its origins to the First World War, as well as on the culture of modernity from which cinema arose. His concept of the "cinema of attractions" has tried to relate the development of cinema to other forces than storytelling, such as new experiences of space and time in modernity, and an emerging modern visual culture. Prof. Gunning has written on the avant-garde film, both in its European pre-First World War manifestations and the American avant-garde film up to the present day. He has also written on the genre in Hollywood cinema and on the relation between cinema and technology. The issues of film culture, the historical factors of exhibition and criticism and the spectator's experience throughout film history are recurrent themes in his work.

Prof. Jotun Hein, IAS Distinguished Scholar 2021/2022, is the chair of Bioinformatics in the Department of Statistics at the University of Oxford, UK. Prof. Hein held his studies at Aarhus University, Denmark, in Biology and Mathematical Statistics. He graduated with a Bachelor in Biology (1978), a Bachelor in Mathematical Statistics (1981), a Master of Science in Biology with a specialization in Molecular Biology and Genetics, a Master in Mathematics (Non-Thesis Report), and a Ph.D. in Genetics (1990). Between 1985 to 1991, Prof. Hein held postdoctoral studies in several leading institutions: he served as a visiting associate at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), Research Triangle Park, USA, under Norman Kaplan and Charles Langley (1985-1987); he was a research associate at the Institute of Mathematics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA, under Michael Waterman (1988); he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Molecular Genetics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, USA, under Russell Doolittle (1988-1989); at the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques (CRM), University of Montreal, Canada, under David Sankoff (1989-1990); and he was a fellow at National Institute of Genetics, Mishima, Japan, under Takashi Gojobori (1990-1991). In 1991, he joined Aarhus University as a lecturer, he then served as an associate professor (1994-2001) and founding director of the Bioinformatics Research Centre (BiRC, May-August 2001). In 2001, Prof. Hein moved to the Department of Statistics of the University of Oxford, UK, where he serves until today as the chair of Bioinformatics. Since 2002, Prof. Hein is a member of the Danish Royal Society of Science. Prof. Hein has throughout his career been particularly interested in inferring recombination events, statistical models for alignment and annotation. He has published over 100 research papers on these topics and co-authored together with Mikkel H. Schierup and Carsten Wiuf the book “Gene Genealogies, Variation and Evolution: A primer in coalescent theory” (Oxford University Press, 2004) on Coalescent Theory. Prof. Hein teaches and supervises projects in computational biology covering a wide set of topics such as molecular evolution, deep learning in the biosciences, molecular modeling, neuroscience and more at the University of Oxford. Prof. Hein takes most satisfaction in his contribution to algorithms for multiple alignment, recombination inference and genomic annotation.

Prof. Morten L. Kringelbach, IAS Distinguished Scholar for the academic year 2022/2023, is a Professor of Neuroscience and a Principal Investigator in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, UK. He is also the Director of the Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing and Erel Shalit Carlsberg Foundation Senior Research Fellow at Linacre College. Prof. Kringelbach also holds positions at Aarhus University, Denmark, as a Professor of Neuroscience at the Department of Clinical Medicine, Co-founder and Principal Investigator at the Center for Music in the Brain and Co-director of the Flavour Institute. He holds a B.Sc. (1994) and an M.Sc. (1997) in Computer Science from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and a D.Phil. (2001) in Neuroscience from Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford, UK. Since 2017, Professor Kringelbach has served as a Visiting Professor at the School of Medicine of the University of Minho, Portugal. He is a board member of the Empathy Museum, UK (2016 – present), the Scientific board at the Bial Foundation, Portugal (2016 – present) and an advisory board at the Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat), Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Chile (2021 – present). Professor Kringelbach is a member of the Society for Neuroscience, the Society for Social Neuroscience, the Society for Cognitive Neuroscience, the Organisation for Computational Neuroscience, the Association for Neuropsychiatry, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for Human Brain Mapping. He received several honors and awards for his work, among them: the Science Communication Prize (£10.000) presented by HRH Crown Princess Mary, Denmark (2006), Best Poster Prize, Brain Prize meetings (2014, 2012, and 2011); and the Foundation Ulla og Mogens Folmer Andersen Prize (2001). He has given keynotes at several Nobel Forum Symposia and at large international conferences. Along with other highly distinguished primarily US-based scientists, he also served on the advisory board of Scientific American (2009-2020). He has published 14 books and over 400 peer‐reviewed scientific papers, book chapters and other articles. He has given numerous scientific lectures and public engagement activities. His interdisciplinary Centre currently hosts 27 scholars, research scientists, doctoral students, as well as many shorter‐term national and international visitors. His main research focus is on understanding hedonia (pleasure) and eudaimonia (life well-lived). His research with international collaborators uses advanced neuroimaging, neurosurgical and whole-brain modeling methods to understand brain function. Together with Professor Gustavo Deco (Spain), he has recently created Thermodynamics of Mind, a unified theory of brain function. He is the Director of the Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing, which convenes and fosters an interdisciplinary team of neuroscientists, philosophers, psychologists, social scientists, physicists, biologists, anthropologists, and artists. The collaborative goal is to clarify underlying psychological, cultural and philosophical issues and connect these discussions to contemporary investigation of the neural mechanisms of emotional and cognitive states. The research teams use philosophical, anthropological and psychological analyses as well as precise neuroscientific paradigms in collaboration with international partners.
 

Prof. Nancy E. Lane, M.D., IAS Distinguished Scholar 2021/2022, is a distinguished professor of Medicine and Rheumatology, principal investigator at the NIH Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health (BIRCWH), co-principal investigator and director of the USBJD/NIH Young Investigators Grant Writing Initiative, and co-principal investigator of the NIH/NIDCR Regenerative Medicine Initiative, at the School of Medicine of the University of California, Davis, USA. Prof, Lane holds a B.S. in Biochemistry (with highest honors, 1976) from the University of California, Davis, USA, and an M.D. (1980) from the University of California, San Francisco, USA. Following her medical training program, Prof. Lane joined the division of Rheumatology of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, USA, where she served as an assistant professor of Medicine (1990-1994), and an associate professor of Medicine (1995-2003). In 2005, she transitioned to the University of California, Davis, USA, where she was appointed distinguished professor of Medicine and Rheumatology, Dean’s Endowed Chair in Aging Research (2005-2020), vice chair for Research in the Department of Medicine (2005-2009), director of the Center for Healthy Aging (2005-2010), and director of the Academic Geriatric Resource Program (2005-2014). At UC Davis, she also served as the director of the Center for Musculoskeletal Health (2011-2020), director of the K12 NIH Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health (BIRCWH, 2011-2020) where she still holds position today as a principal investigator (2020-present), and principal investigator of the NIH funded Program on Sex Differences in Musculoskeletal Diseases Across the Lifespan (2011-2020). In addition, Prof. Lane is currently the director and co-principal investigator of the NIH/USBJI young investigators program to teach junior faculty how to write grants and be successful in an academic career, and co-principal investigator of the NIH/NIDCR Regenerative Medicine C-DOCTOR initiative. Prof. Lane was president of the Board of the United States Bone and Joint Decade (2006-2008), co-led the International Bone and Joint Decade Conference in Washington DC (2010), served on the council of the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research (2010-2013) and the Orthopedic Research Society. Prof. Lane is a board member of the Osteoarthritis Research Society International (2020), a fellow of the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research (2019), a member of the American Clinical and Climatological Association (2018), a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2017), a scientific advisory committee member of the International Osteoporosis Foundation (2013), an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (2012), a member of the Association of Osteobiology (2007), and a member of the Association of American Physicians (2006). Awards: the Laureate Award from Northern California Chapter of the ACP (2019); the Steven Krane Award, American Society of Bone and Mineral Research (2016); the Paula Stern Lifetime Achievement Award, ASBMR September (2013); the Remodeling in Bone (RIB) Award, International Society of Bone and Mineral Research (2012); Master of the American College of Physicians (2012); and the International Bone Joint Decade Outstanding Achievement Award for Mentoring Workshops (2008). In addition, Prof. Lane has been named Best Doctors in America annually since 2004 and continues to have an active rheumatology practice. Prof. Lane is on the editorial boards of The Journal of Clinical Rheumatology, The Journal of Musculoskeletal Medicine, The Journal of Rheumatology, Osteoporosis International, Arthritis Research, Arthritis Self-Management, Nature Reviews Rheumatology, Journal Rheumatology, Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism (Associate Editor), Rheumatology Network, and the Journal of Rheumatic Diseases and Treatment. Prof. Lane is an internationally recognized scientist in the fields of both osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. Her translational research team has been instrumental in defining the role of glucocorticoids in bone fragility including their effects on cell stress and vulnerable cell populations including osteocytes.

Prof. Peter J. Loewen, IAS Distinguished Scholar for the academic year 2021/2022, is a professor in the Department of Political Science and the director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, where he also holds the positions of director of the PEARL research lab and co-director of the Media Ecosystem Observatory project, at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. At the University of Toronto, Prof. Loewen also serves as a member of the Faculty of Graduate Studies, a senior fellow of The Massey College and an associate director at the Schwartz Reisman Institute. Prof. Loewen has also held visiting positions at leading institutions such as the Melbourne School of Government, University of Melbourne, Australia (2014), the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA. (2016) and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA (2018). Prof. Loewen is also a member of the Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP) research, evaluation, and learning network (2012-present). He was also a fellow of the Canadian Public Policy Forum (2019-2021). Awards: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2014, 2012, 2011 Dean's Excellence Award, University of Toronto, Canada; the CQ Press best paper award in legislative studies, the American Political Science Association; the 2014 Contemporary Achievement Award, Mount Allison University, Canada; the 2012 Early Research Award, Government of Ontario, Canada; and more. Prof. Loewen has edited four books and he often contributes to the popular press. His work has been published in American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Political Research Quarterly, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Transactions of the Royal Society B, and Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and other journals. Prof. Loewen is interested in how politicians can make better decisions, how citizens can make better choices, and how governments can address the disruption of technology and harness its opportunities. His research has been funded by SSHRC, the European Research Council, the Government of Ontario, and other organizations. He regularly engages in public debate, and acts as a consultant for several public and private organizations

Prof. Frederick C. MacKintosh, IAS Distinguished Scholar for the academic year 2022/2023, is the Abercrombie Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA. He holds B.S. degrees in Mathematics (1984) and Physics (1984) from the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA, and a Ph.D. in Physics (1989) from Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA. Prof. MacKintosh is a fellow of the American Physical Society. He has been a member of many scientific boards including the Physical Review Letters Editorial Board (DAE), the board of the Division of Physics in Life Sciences of the EPS, the Governing Board (Raad van Bestuur) of the Dutch Physics Funding Agency (FOM), the European Research Council Consolidator Grant Panel (chair in 2020), the Spinoza Prize  Committee, and the APS GSOFT Executive Committee. He also served as editor of Biological Physics at Physical Review Letters. He has published over 200 papers, which have been cited over 25,000 times. He is one of the leading theoretical scientists in the field of soft biological materials. His key achievements include the development of commonly used models of elasticity and dynamics of biopolymer gels, combined experimental and theoretical advances in microrheology and non-equilibrium, motor-activated gels and active diffusion in cells, as well as the identification of affine to non-affine transitions and critical behavior in fiber networks. His research focuses on the fundamental material properties of biological and soft matter.

Prof. Oded Nov, IAS Distinguished Scholar 2020/2021, is a Full Professor and the Technology Management Department Chair at New York University Tandon School of Engineering. He received his B.A. degree from Tel-Aviv University, his M.Sc. degree from the London School of Economics, and his Ph.D. from Cambridge University. Prof. Nov’s research focuses on social computing, human-computer interaction, and the future of expert work in healthcare. Prof. Nov’s work has been funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation through numerous research grants, including the NSF CAREER award (2012) for his work in the fields of human-computer interaction and citizen Science. Additional funding for his work was provided by the National Academies Keck Initiative, the MacArthur Foundation, the E.U. Marie Curie program, and Google. Prof. Nov has published multiple papers in prestigious journals and peer-reviewed conference proceedings and received several Best Paper Awards. Among his current research projects is a new $2 million National Science Foundation-funded project to study and improve healthcare expert work in an age of enhanced cognition facilitated by data-intensive and artificial intelligence tools. Prof. Nov leads this collaborative effort of the NYU schools of Engineering, Medicine and Business, to study and design tools and workflows that help shape the interactions between healthcare professionals, patients and advanced technologies. Prof. Nov is also one of the principal investigators of Sounds of New York City (SONYC), a $5 million effort to harnesses novel sensors, machine learning, data analytics, and crowdsourcing to monitor, analyze, and mitigate urban noise pollution in New York City. Prof. Nov serves as an Oded Nov advisor for Ph.D., MS, and BS students, as well as post-doctoral researchers.

Prof. Martin Oheim, IAS Distinguished Scholar for the academic year 2021/2022, is director of the Saints-Pères Paris Institute for the Neurosciences, director of research in Neuroscience (DR1), and principal investigator in biophysics of neuro-glia interactions at the French National Research Center (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS), Paris, France. Prof. Oheim holds an M.A.St. in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (Part III of the Mathematical Tripos, 1994) from St Edmunds College, Cambridge University, UK, a Physics diploma (M.Sci., 1996) and a Ph.D. in Physics and Biophysics (1998) under the supervision of Nobel-laureate Erwin Neher from Göttingen University, Germany. Prof. Oheim is a fellow of the German Academic National Scholarship Foundation and a member of the National network France Bioimaging. Awards: the Gay Lussac Humboldt Award (2019), the prize of the French Society of Lasers in Medical Sciences (2001) and the Otto-Hahn medal of the Max-Planck Society (1999). He was the Joseph-Meyerhoff Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biomolecular Sciences at the Weizmann Institute for Science, Israel (2018). Prof. Oheim was also a member of the excellence clusters of the CNRS support and research unit C'nano Ile-de-France and of the Ecole de Neurosciences de Paris (2013-2017). He was a Feodor-Lynen fellow of the Alexander-von-Humboldt foundation (1999-2002). Prof. Oheim is an internationally leading biophysicist interested in how intracellular organelle localization and dynamic changes in organelle morphology affect cell physiology and pathophysiology.

Prof. Rafael Pass, IAS Distinguished Scholar for the academic year 2021/2022, is a professor at Cornell Tech, New York City, USA and in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University, Ithaca, USA. Prof. Pass received his bachelor’s in Engineering Physics (2000) and his master’s in Computer Science (2004), both from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden, and his Ph.D. in Computer Science (2006) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA. Prof. Pass has been on the faculty of Cornell University in Ithaca, USA, since 2006 and joined Cornell Tech - a collaboration between Cornell University and Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa - in New York City in 2013 as one of its founding faculty members. Prof. Pass’ research interests are in the field of Cryptography and its interplay with Computational Complexity and Game Theory. His contributions include foundational work on theoretical cryptography, blockchains, and game-theory with resource-bounded agents. Awards: the NSF Career Award (2008), the Microsoft Faculty Fellowship (2009), the AFOSR Young Investigator Award (2010), the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2011), the Wallenberg Academy Fellowship (2013), the Google Faculty Award (2015), the JP Morgan Faculty Fellowship (2020), and the Best paper award at the Annual International Cryptology Conference (2021).

Prof. Sandu Popescu, IAS Distinguished Scholar for the academic year 2022/2023, is a professor of Physics at the University of Bristol, Bristol, UK. Prof. Popescu graduated with an M.Sc. in Physics (1991) from the University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania and a Ph.D. in Physics, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. At the University of Bristol, he has supervised 13 postdoctoral researchers and five Ph.D. students. He is a fellow of the Royal Society (2017). For his contributions, Prof. Popescu received several awards, among them: the Cozzarelli Prize 2016 (PNAS); the 2016 Dirac Medal, Institute of Physics; the 2012 Wolfson Research Merit Award, The Royal Society; the 2011 John Stewart Bell Prize; the 2010 Ambassador’s Diploma, Romanian Embassy, UK; the 2004 Clifford-Patterson Prize Lecture, The Royal Society; and the 2001 Adams Prize, University of Cambridge. Prof. Popescu has published 127 peer-reviewed papers, with an h-index of 56 and 16654 citations. He is a board member of the journal Quantum Studies: Mathematics and Foundations since 2004. He served in the past as a board member for the journal International Journal of Quantum Information (2002-2009) and the Journal of Physics A. Mathematical and General. Prof. Popescu’s main research interest is in fundamental aspects of quantum physics, quantum entanglement and non-locality. He has contributed to many other aspects of quantum theory, such as pre-selected and post-selected quantum states, entangled-photon spectroscopy and nonlocal correlations beyond quantum mechanics. More recently he worked on the foundations of statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, proving from first principles some of its basic postulates.
 

Prof. Michael Renov, IAS Distinguished Scholar for the academic year 2021/2022, is The Haskell Wexler Endowed Chair in Documentary, chair and professor of Critical Studies, and vice-dean for Academic Affairs in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, USA. Prof. Renov graduated with a B.A. (with honors) in English from Tulane University, New Orleans, USA (1972), an M.A. in Film Studies from San Francisco State University, USA (1977), and a Ph.D. in Motion Pictures and Television from the University of California, Los Angeles, USA (1982). He joined in 1985 the School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, USA, where he holds a position until today. Prof. Renov is one of three principal investigators for the American Film Showcase, a program funded by the U.S. Department of State. Prof. Renov is also president of the board of trustees of Canyon Cinema Foundation, a 50-year-old nonprofit organization that archives and distributes more than 3500 independent, experimental and artist-made films. In addition to curating documentary programs around the world, Prof. Renov has served as a jury member at documentary festivals including Sundance, Silverdocs, the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival, Brazil's It's All True, the International Environmental Festival of Film and Video, also in Brazil, and DocLisboa in Portugal. In 1993, he co-founded “Visible Evidence”, a series of international and highly interdisciplinary documentary studies conferences that have, to date, been held on five continents. In 2005, Prof. Renov co-programmed the 51st annual Robert Flaherty Seminar, a week-long gathering of documentary filmmakers, curators, and educators, creating 20 screening programs and filmmaker dialogues on the theme "Cinema and History." Prof. Renov is the author and editor of eight books including: “Hollywood's Wartime Woman: Representation and Ideology” (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1988); “Theorizing Documentary” (New York: Routledge and the American Film Institute, 1993), “Collecting Visible Evidence” (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1999), “The Subject of Documentary” (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004), “Cinema’s Alchemist: The Films of Peter Forgacs and From Shtetl to Stardom: Jews and Hollywood” (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011). Prof. Renov is one of four general editors for the “Investigating Visible Evidence” book series at Columbia University Press with 28 volumes on various aspects of nonfiction media published since 1997. Prof. Renov's teaching and research interests include documentary theory, autobiography in film and video, video art and activism, and representations of the Holocaust.

Prof. Shai Secunda, IAS Distinguished Scholar 2021/2022, is the Chair of the Interdisciplinary Study of Religions Program and Jacob Neusner Professor in the History and Theology of Judaism at Bard College, Annandale-On-Hudson, New York, USA. In his research, Prof. Secunda reads the Babylonian Talmud and other religious texts of the Sasanian Empire, especially Zoroastrian literature, for cultural and religious history. Prof. Secunda is the author of two books. His first book, “The Iranian Talmud: Reading the Bavli in its Sasanian Context” (University of Pennsylvania, 2014), grounds and theorizes the much-neglected contextual study of the Talmud – the central text in the classical Jewish canon. His second book, “The Talmud’s Red Fence: Menstrual Impurity and Difference in Babylonian Judaism and Its Sasanian Context” (Oxford, 2020), explores the shape and development of Jewish practices concerning menstruation in light of corresponding approaches by Zoroastrians, Mandaeans, Syriac Christians, and other religious communities in late antique Mesopotamia. Prof. Secunda also co-edited two books: “Shoshannat Yaakov: Jewish and Iranian Studies in Honor of Yaakov Elman” (Brill, 2012); and “Encounters by the Rivers of Babylon: Scholarly Conversations Between Jews, Iranians and Babylonians in Antiquity” (Mohr Siebeck, 2014). Prof. Secunda’s current book project, “Sea of Babylon: Creating the Talmud in Sasanian Mesopotamia”, applies new theoretical, methodological, and comparative approaches to the question of how the Talmud became the single textual vehicle transmitting Babylonian rabbinic culture. As part of this research, he is inaugurating the “Topographies of the Talmud” project at the digital humanities “Literary Lab” at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. Prof. Secunda’s teaching at Bard College covers Jewish religious life and literature, Zoroastrianism, and also method and theory in the study of religion. Besides his regular academic publications, he writes regularly at the Jewish Review of Books, where he reviews scholarship and writes criticism on popular culture, including Israeli television and cinema.

Prof Jonathan Selinger, IAS Distinguished Scholar 2021/2022, is an Ohio Eminent Scholar and a professor of Physics in the Physics Department and the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, at Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, USA. Prof. Selinger graduated in Physics from Harvard University, Cambridge, USA., with an A.B. (summa cum laude, 1983), an A.M. (1985) and a Ph.D. (1989) under the direction of Prof. David R. Nelson. He then did postdoctoral research in Los Angeles, with positions at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the Department of Physics and at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in the Department of Chemical Engineering. In 1992, he moved to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., as a research physicist (1993-2005) in the Center for Bio/Molecular Science and Engineering. There, he also served as the chairman of the Core Planning Committee, managing internal basic research funds (2003-2005), and as deputy head of the Laboratory for Biosensors and Biomaterials (2004-2005). In 2005, he joined the Glenn H. Brown Liquid Crystal Institute (renamed in 2018 Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute) of Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, U.S.A., where he serves until now as an Ohio Eminent Scholar (2005-present). In 2017, he also joined the Physics Department of Kent State University as a professor of Physics. Prof. Selinger is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2020) and the American Physical Society (2014). He received several distinctions, including the Samsung Award for Mid-Career Research Excellence from the International Liquid Crystal Society (2014). In addition to these research and teaching positions, Prof. Selinger has also served as associate editor of Physical Review E, responsible for the liquid-crystal section of the journal (2003-2009). He is also the author of the book “Introduction to the Theory of Soft Matter: From Ideal Gases to Liquid Crystals” (Springer, 2016). This book has received favorable reviews in Physics Today and Liquid Crystals Today. Prof. Selinger’s research focuses on the theory of liquid crystals, nanoparticle suspensions, and related topics in soft materials, and seeks to make connections between fundamental statistical mechanics and technological applications.

Prof. Ivan I. Smalyukh, IAS Distinguished Scholar for the academic year 2021/2022, is a professor of Physics and Materials Science Engineering, a founding fellow of the Renewable Sustainable Energy Institute, and a professor (courtesy appointment) in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado, USA. Prof. Smalyukh is also a founder of the startup company iFeather Technologies Inc. He is also heading the Soft Matter Physics Research Group at the University of Colorado Boulder, a multi-disciplinary research group with about 30 group members (students and postdocs) and with a broad spectrum of research projects. Prof. Smalyukh graduated with a B.S/M.S. (1995) with highest honors from Lviv Polytechnic National University, Ukraine and with a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics (2003) from Kent State University, Ohio, USA. Prof. Smalyukh is an elected fellow of the Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers Society (2021) and of the American Physical Society (2016). Awards: the 2021 Langmuir Lectureship Award of the American Chemical Society; the 2018 Mid-Career Award of the International Liquid Crystal Society (ILCS); he was the 2018 Winner of the NASA iTech competition (as a leader of iFeather team of the University of Colorado Boulder); he was awarded the 2017 “Paris Sciences Chair” Award, ESPCI Paris, France; the 2015-2016 GSoft Award for Soft Matter Research from the American Physical Society (APS); the 2014-2015 Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany; the 2013 U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Research Award; the 2011 Kavli Frontiers Fellowship, selected by a Selection Committee of the National Academy of Sciences; the 2010 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), Office of Science and Technology Policy; and the 2006 Glenn H. Brown Prize, International Liquid Crystal Society. Prof. Smalyukh’s research focuses on soft condensed matter, materials and biological systems, including liquid crystals, colloids, polymers, bacteria, gels, biomaterials and their photonic, electro-optic and energy-related applications. He published about 230 peer-refereed research articles in top international journals, such as four in the journal “Nature” and four in the journal “Science”. Prof. Smalyukh organized many conferences, workshops and summer schools.

Prof. Michael Snyder, IAS Distinguished Scholar 2021/2022, is the Stanford W. Ascherman Professor of Genetics, chair of the Genetics Department and the director of the Center of Genomics and Personalized Medicine at the School of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA. Prof. Snyder holds a B.A. in Chemistry and Biology (1977) from the University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA, and a Ph.D. in Biology (1982) from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA. In 1986, Prof. Snyder joined the Department of Biology at Yale University, Connecticut, USA. At Yale University, he was also appointed associate professor/professor in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, (joint appointment, 1992-2009), and chair of the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology (1998-2004). In 2002, he was appointed director of Undergraduate Studies (2002-2009) and Lewis B. Cullman Professor (2002-2009) in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. Prof. Snyder also served as a member of Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center (1991-2009), and as the director of Yale Center for Genomics and Proteomics (2002-2009). In 2009, Prof. Snyder moved to Stanford University School of Medicine, where he holds the positions of chair of the Department of Genetics and director of the Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine. In 2011, he was named Stanford W. Ascherman Professor of Genetics. For the past 25 years, Prof. Snyder has served as a principal investigator of an NIH training grant and run many programs serving underrepresented groups. He has also run an independent lab for 35 years and trained approximately 160 postdoctoral fellows and 60 graduate students. Prof. Snyder is a member of the American Academy of Sciences (2015), and was previously a member of the Genetics Society of America and Meetings Committee (2006-2010) and the Genetics Society of America Board of Directors (2006-2009). For his contributions, Prof. Snyder was awarded several distinctions, among them: he was selected as a high impact/most cited scientist several times (2000, 2018, 2016, 2014); he received the George Beadle Award (2019), the Pioneer Award, HUPO (2009), the Connecticut Medal of Science (2007), the Burroughs Wellcome Scholar Award (1986), and more. Prof. Snyder is the author of the book “Genomics and Personalized Medicine: What Everyone Needs to Know” (2016, Oxford University Press). Prof. Snyder is also on the Editorial Board of several journals: Functional and Integrative Genomics, Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, Drug Discovery Today, PloS Genetics, Genes and Development, Editorial Board, Molecular Systems Biology, Scientific American, Molecular Cellular Proteomics and Clinical Proteomics. Prof. Snyder is a leader in the field of functional genomics and multiomics, and one of the major participants of the ENCODE project. His laboratory study was the first to perform a large-scale functional genomics project in any organism, and has developed many technologies in genomics and proteomics.

Prof. Alex Zunger, IAS Distinguished Scholar 2021/2022, is director and chief scientist for Theory in the Center on Inverse Design (CID), and research professor and a fellow of the Institute of Renewable and Sustainable Energy at the University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, USA. Prof. Zunger graduated from the University of Tel Aviv, Israel, with a B.Sc. (1968), an M.Sc. (1970) and a Ph.D. (in 1975) in Chemical Physics. He received his Ph.D. under the direction of Prof. Joshua Jortner and Prof. Binyamin Englman, with whom he worked on Quantum Theory of Molecular Solids. Prof. Zunger held his postdoctoral research under the guidance of Prof. Art Freeman at the Physics Department of Northwestern University, Evanston, USA (1975-1977), and then under the guidance of Prof. Marvin Cohen at the Physics Department of U.C. Berkeley, Berkeley, USA (1977-1978) where he was nominated IBM fellow. In 1978, he became a research fellow at National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Golden, Colorado, USA (1978-2011). At the NREL, he established and headed until 2011 the Solid State Theory group. In 2009, Prof. Zunger won a 5-year research endeavor of $20 million from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and establishes the Center of Inverse Design (CID). Prof. Zunger is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the Materials Research Society, and a past Sackler fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies, Tel Aviv University, Israel (2011-2012). Awards: the 2018 Boer Medal for photovoltaic research; the 2013 TMS Hume-Rothery Award on Theory of alloys; the 2011 (inaugural) Materials Theory Award of the Materials Research Society on Inverse Design; the 2010 Tomassoni Prize (Italy); the 2010 Medal of the Schola Physica Romana" celebrating the tradition of E. Fermi; the 2001 John Bardeen award of The Material Society on "Spontaneous Ordering in semiconductor alloys"; the 2001 Rahman Award of the American Physical Society on 'foundational development of First Principles methods'; and the 2009 Gutenberg Award (Germany) on correlated electron systems. Prof. Zunger research field is the Condensed Matter Theory of Real Materials and he is a pioneer in the field now called “First Principles Theory of Solids”. He is the author of the fifth-most-cited paper in the 110-year history of Physical Review (out of over 350,000 articles published in that journal). In the course of his research, he has authored more than 700 articles in refereed journals, which includes over 150 articles in Physical Review Letters and Rapid Communications sections of the journal Physical Review B and three citation classics. Declared by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) as the 39th most-cited physicist out of more than 500,000 physicists examined, based on publications in 1981–1997 in all branches of physics. Prof. Zunger serves as a nominator and consultant for the Physics Nobel Committee for the past five years.