American Academy of Sciences and Letters invests three from Johns Hopkins

In recognition of outstanding scholarly achievement, the American Academy of Sciences and Letters welcomed Stephanie A. DeLuca, Paul McHugh, and Steven M. Teles of Johns Hopkins University as new members during its annual investiture ceremony in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 12. McHugh was also awarded the Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom and took part in a keynote conversation.

Image caption: Stephanie DeLuca, Paul McHugh, and Stephen Teles

The academy promotes scholarship and honors outstanding achievement in the arts, sciences, and learned professions. It supports learning by encouraging the exchange of ideas within academia and in society at large, and by sponsoring occasions for scholarly interaction and providing platforms for the presentation and dissemination of scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering. A nonprofit organization, the academy provides public programming, supports promising young scholars, and promotes traditional liberal ideals.

The academy's Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom, named for the late president of the University of Chicago and a stalwart defender of academic freedom, is presented annually to an individual who displays extraordinary courage in the exercise of intellectual freedom. McHugh was honored for his long career advocating approaches to psychiatry that are based on evidence in the face of intense professional pressure to compromise scientific standards.

About the Johns Hopkins faculty:

Stefanie A. DeLuca is a professor of sociology and social policy at Johns Hopkins University. Her work uses mixed methods to investigate both causality and effectiveness of social policy in areas such as education and neighborhood housing policies, as well as studying social context and its effects on the outcomes of disadvantaged young people. Her 2016 book Coming of Age in America was selected for the William J. Good Book Award of the American Sociological Association and was recognized as an Outstanding Academic Title by the American Library Association. She is an elected member of the Sociological Research Association and the recipient of the Publicly Engaged Scholar Award of the American Sociological Association (Community and Urban Sociology section), among other honors and awards.

Paul R. McHugh is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University. He was for 26 years the psychiatrist-in-chief at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was the founder and first director of the Bourne Behavioral Research Laboratory of New York Hospital, Westchester Division at Cornell, as well as the leader of the Blades Center for Clinical Practice and Research in Alcohol/Drug Dependence; the co-chairman of the ethics committee of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology; the chairman of the NIH Bio-Psychology Study Section; and a trustee of the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease. His research focuses on the neuroscientific foundations of motivated behaviors, psychiatric genetics, epidemiology, and neuropsychiatry. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and from 2002 to 2009 served on the President's Council on Bioethics.

Steven M. Teles is a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. Among other notable books, he is the co-author, with Brink Lindsey, of The Captured Economy, which investigates the role of rent-seeking in the growth of inequality. He has published widely in outlets including Democracy Journal, The Nation, The American Prospect, National Affairs, The Public Interest, and National Review.