Did You Know?

Samuel J. Palmisano has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

IBM announced that Samuel J. Palmisano, Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the world’s most prestigious honorary societies and a center for independent policy research.

The Academy provides a forum for a select group of scholars, members of the learned professions, and government and business leaders to work together on behalf of the democratic interests of the republic. It undertakes studies of complex and emerging problems, and its membership of scholars and practitioners from many disciplines and professions gives it a unique capacity to conduct a wide range of interdisciplinary, long-term policy research. Current projects focus on science and technology; global security; social policy and American institutions; the humanities and culture; and education.

“The American Academy of Arts & Sciences is a group of fellow leaders who are seizing the opportunity to drive meaningful change,” said Mr. Palmisano. “I am delighted to join the Officers and Fellows of the Academy and to become part of such a distinguished American institution, with an important tradition and history of accomplishment in areas I care about so deeply.”

Since its founding in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and other scholar-patriots, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has elected leading “thinkers and doers” 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 current membership includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners. This year, the Academy celebrates the 230th anniversary of its founding.

“We are pleased to welcome Mr. Palmisano into the Academy,” said Leslie Berlowitz, Chief Executive Officer and William T. Golden Chair. “We look forward to drawing upon his distinguished background in business and innovation. Mr. Palmisano’s expertise and experience will aid the Academy in its mission to provide practical and innovative solutions to the pressing issues of the day.”

Mr. Palmisano will be inducted at a ceremony on October 9th, at the Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Other new members who will be inducted at this time include Nobel laureate economist Myron Scholes; Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Daniel Howe; actor Denzel Washington; director Francis Ford Coppola; G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; Chung Law, whose research on combustion has implications for new classes of transportation fuels; and Timothy Ley, who led the group that sequenced the first human cancer genome.