Faculty Elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Mirjam Cvetič, Fay R. and Eugene L. Langberg Professor of Physics, and Petra Todd, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Economics, have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In addition, affiliated faculty Nader Engheta of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and Vivian L. Gadsden of the Graduate School of Education were elected. They join nearly 270 new members honored in 2023, recognized for their excellence, innovation, leadership, and broad array of accomplishments.
Cvetič is part of the high energy theory group at Penn, which studies the fundamental forces of nature, early universe cosmology and mathematical physics. She is an expert on issues relating to string theory and its consequences for particle physics. Her research spans broad thrusts in fundamental theory, ranging from gravitational physics and work at the interface with differential and algebraic geometry to leading efforts in constructions of string theory solutions and the study of their physics implications. She won the University of Maryland Physics Distinguished Alumni Award in 2007, and is a recipient of the Friedrich von Siemens Research Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2020.
Todd is a research associate of Penn’s Population Studies Center. Her main fields of research are social program evaluation, labor economics, and microeconometrics. She is on the editorial board of the International Economic Review and the Econometrics Journal. She is a fellow of the Econometrics Society and of the Society of Labor Economists. She has published papers on econometric methods for evaluating the effects of program/policy interventions, the determinants of cognitive achievement, testing for discrimination in motor vehicle searches, sources of racial and gender labor market disparities, pension program design, and on conditional cash transfer programs. She is currently working on projects analyzing the effects of personality traits on gender labor market disparities, evaluating the effects of grade retention in Portugal, analyzing the effects of local minimum wage policies in the United States, and analyzing the effects of a nationwide preschool reform in Mexico.
Engheta is the H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Science; and a secondary appointment in Physics and Astronomy in Penn Arts & Sciences. His current research activities span a broad range of areas including optics, photonics, metamaterials, electrodynamics, microwaves, nano-optics, graphene photonics, imaging and sensing inspired by eyes of animal species, microwave and optical antennas, and physics and engineering of fields and waves. He has received numerous awards for his research, including the 2023 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering, the 2020 Isaac Newton Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics (U.K.), the 2020 Max Born Award from OPTICA (formerly OSA), induction to the Canadian Academy of Engineering as an International Fellow (2019), U.S. National Academy of Inventors (2015), and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor from the Ellis Island Honors Society (2019).
Gadsden is the William T. Carter Professor of Child Development and professor of education in the Graduate School of Education; faculty member in Africana Studies and in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies in Penn Arts & Sciences; and faculty director of the Penn Child Research Center. Her research and interests focus on learning and literacies across the life-course and address issues of culture, equity, and access for young children and families in historically marginalized communities. Her collaborative research projects draw upon interdisciplinary frameworks that examine early childhood development, parenting, and families; father engagement in urban settings; social factors affecting health and education; children of incarcerated parents; and intergenerational learning. Gadsden serves or has served on numerous foundation boards, congressionally mandated committees, and White House initiatives. A past president of the American Educational Research Association, she has held leadership roles in the Society for Research in Child Development and editorship of several publications, including Educational Researcher and the Review of Research in Education.
Founded in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences honors excellence and convenes leaders from every field of human endeavor to examine new ideas, address issues of importance to the nation and the world, and work together “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.”
