The University of Johannesburg’s Vice-Chancellor and Principal Professor Tshilidzi Marwala has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The university announced that Marwala was elected to the academy as a new international honorary member.
The academy, founded in 1780, honours excellence and convenes leaders to examine new ideas, address issues of importance to the nation and the world and advance the public good.
“The academy was founded on the belief that the new republic should honour truly accomplished individuals and engage them in meaningful work,” said Nancy C Andrews, chairperson of the academy’s board of directors and former dean of medicine at Duke.
Through the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, leaders are also honoured for their work to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity and happiness of a free, independent and virtuous people.
Marwala is among the 261 new members elected this year, an occasion which continues a tradition of recognising accomplishments and leadership in academia, the arts, industry, public policy and research.
“This honour signifies the high regard in which you are held by leaders in your field and members throughout the United States. Our warmest congratulations on your election,” Andrews said in announcing the election of Marwala.
“The academy’s dual mission continues to this day. Membership is an honour, and also an opportunity to shape ideas and influence policy in areas as diverse as the arts, democracy, education, global affairs and science.”
Marwala joined an illustrious group of individuals elected to the academy that includes American founding members Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and George Washington in the 18th century.
“I am extremely grateful to have been named as an international honorary member of this illustrious institution with a great legacy which shares my passion for science and engineering. I dedicate this election to the entire UJ community for their support,” said Marwala.
Other members of the academy were essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, astronomer Maria Mitchell and naturalist Charles Darwin in the 19th century, as well as theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, poet Robert Frost, cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead, economist Milton Friedman, civil rights activist and Baptist minister Martin Luther King jr, theoretical physicist Stephen Jay Hawking and educator and politician Condoleezza Rice in the 20th.
More recently, biochemist Jennifer Doudna, lawyer and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson, scientist and animal behaviourist M Temple Grandin, singer-songwriter John Legend, professor and novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen, writer and journalist James Fallows, singer-songwriter Joan Baez and neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta were elected to the academy.
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