Two Pitt Faculty Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

PITTSBURGH—Two University of Pittsburgh faculty members—Terrance A. Hayes and James F. Woodward—have been elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The professors, both teaching within Pitt’s Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, are part of the Academy’s 236th annual class, which will be formally inducted next fall.

Founded in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is one of the nation’s oldest learned societies and independent policy research centers. The academy’s work is advanced by its elected members, world leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs. Academy members contribute to publications and studies of science, engineering, and technology policy; global security and international affairs; the humanities, arts, and education; and American institutions and the public good.

Terrance A. Hayes is a world-renowned poet and professor in Pitt’s Department of English. His most recent poetry collection How to Be Drawn (Penguin, 2015) was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2010, he won the National Book Award for the collection Lighthead (Penguin), which also was a finalist for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award.

Prior to coming to Pitt in 2013, Hayes taught at Carnegie Mellon University for 12 years. In 2014, Hayes was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship—also known as the “genius grant”—from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The honor recognized his exceptional creativity and outstanding talent as demonstrated through a track record of significant achievement. A native of Columbia, S.C., Hayes earned an MFA in writing at Pitt in 1997 as well as a BA at Coker College in South Carolina.

James F. Woodward is a Distinguished Professor in Pitt’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science. Much of his research centers on theories of causation and scientific explanation as well as philosophical issues in neuroscience, psychology, and the social sciences. He is the author of Making Things Happen: A Theory of Casual Explanation (Oxford University Press, 2003) and has published in such scholarly publications as the International Journal of Epidemiology and The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.

Prior to coming to Pitt in 2010, Woodward taught as the J. O. and Juliette Koepfli Professor of the Humanities at the California Institute of Technology, teaching in various positions at that institution since 1983. He served as the president of the Philosophy of Science Association from 2010 to 2012. Woodward earned a BA in mathematics at Carleton College in 1968 as well as a PhD at The University of Texas at Austin in 1977.

In addition to Hayes and Woodward, newly elected members in the arts and humanities fields include noted poet Yusef Komunyakaa, conceptual artist Glenn Ligon, and jazz musician Wayne Shorter, among others. A full list of the newly elected members of the 236th annual class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences can be found here.

###

4/27/16/amm/klf/jm