The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has named three Cornell faculty members among its 197 new fellows for 2015. The fellows are among “the world’s most accomplished scholars, scientists, writers, artists and civic, business and philanthropic leaders.”

“We are honored to elect a new class of extraordinary women and men to join our distinguished membership,” said Don Randel, chair of the academy’s board of directors and former Cornell provost. “Each new member is a leader in his or her field and has made a distinct contribution to the nation and the world. We look forward to engaging them in the intellectual life of this vibrant institution.”

Halpern

McEuen

Niklas

Joseph Halpern, professor of computer science, joined the Cornell faculty in 1996.  His research focuses on the interface between game and decision theory and computer science, reasoning about knowledge and uncertainty, and causality. He has also worked on security, fault-tolerant distributed computing and modal logic. He served as chair of the computer science department from 2010-14. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory.

Paul McEuen, a faculty member since 2001, is the John A. Newman Professor of Physical Science in the College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science. He leads a nanotechnology lab researching electrical, mechanical and optical properties of carbon nanotubes and graphene sheets; scanned probe microscopy of nanostructures; and applications for nanoelectronics in chemistry and biology. He is also a fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Karl Niklas, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Botany in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a faculty member since 1978, is a plant evolutionist who uses physics, engineering and mathematics to understand the relationship between plant form and function. In particular, he studies how the shape, size, internal structure and reproductive biology of plants have changed over the course of millions of years of evolution. Niklas was named a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell in 2012 and is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The fellows will be inducted at an Oct. 10 ceremony in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Members of the academy includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.