The American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAAS), one of the America's oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and independent policy research centers, announced on April 28 the election of Professor Eiichi Nakamura of Department of Chemistry, School of Science, The University of Tokyo, to its new class of members.

Drawn from the sciences, the arts and humanities, business, public affairs, and the nonprofit sector, the 190 new fellows and 22 foreign honorary members are leaders in their fields and include Nobel laureates and recipients of Pulitzer prizes, and Academy and Grammy awards. The new class will be inducted at a ceremony on October 11, at the Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Eiichi Nakamura: Professor of Chemistry. Involved in most areas of organic chemistry: synthetic,physical,theoretical and biological. Multidisciplinary originality is reflected in the design of new synthetic methods, new classes of molecular architectures, as well as in pioneering biological studies and soft materials base on functional carbon clusters.

Professor Nakamura is the only one Japanese member elected this year. The present number of Japanese Honorary Members counts twentyfive and Professor Nakamura is the Member of Chemistry Section second to Professor Ryoji Noyori of Riken.

Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and other scholar-patriots, the Academy has elected as members the finest minds and most influential leaders from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the eighteenth century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the nineteenth, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the twentieth.

“The Academy honors excellence by electing to membership remarkable men and women who have made preeminent contributions to their fields, and to the world,” said Academy President Emilio Bizzi. “For 228 years, the Academy has served the public good by convening leading thinkers and doers from diverse perspectives to examine – and provide practical policy solutions to -- the pressing issues of the day,”added Chief Executive Officer and William T. Golden Chair Leslie Berlowitz.