Wayne State University President M. Roy Wilson has been elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an honorary society that has recognized the nation’s best and brightest for more than 240 years.
Only one previous Wayne State faculty member, Morris Goodman, a Distinguished Professor of Medicine, now deceased, has been elected to the academy. Goodman was elected in 1996.
In 1780, the academy’s founders – including John Adams and John Hancock – envisioned an organization that would recognize accomplished individuals and engage them in addressing the greatest challenges facing the young nation. The first members elected to the Academy in 1781 included Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. Other members include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill.
When announcing this year’s new members, Academy President David W. Oxtoby said, “With the election of these members, the academy is honoring excellence, innovation, and leadership and recognizing a broad array of stellar accomplishments. We hope every new member celebrates this achievement and joins our work advancing the common good.”
Wilson is among the 270 members elected in 2023. The class includes financial journalist Michael Lewis, author of the books Moneyball, The Big Short and The Undoing Project, and songwriter, actor, director and producer Lin-Manuel Miranda, who created the Broadway musicals Hamilton and In the Heights.
“I am truly honored to have been selected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,” said Wilson. “I’m humbled to be in such distinguished company and part of such an incredible organization.”
In 2003, Wilson was also elected to the highly selective National Academy of Medicine, an organization that recognizes excellence and leadership in medicine. Wilson is the only current NAM member from the Wayne State faculty.
Wilson has been invited to join the other newly elected members for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2023 induction ceremony in September in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the academy's headquarters are located.