Mercer Times

Three members of the Princeton University faculty — Emily Carter, Jo Dunkley, and Kwame Anthony Appiah — along with graduate alumna Erin Schuman, are among the 94 scientists and scholars elected as fellows or foreign members of the Royal Society in 2024. Nominees for this honor must have made "a substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science, and medical science."

Kwame Anthony Appiah, who holds the title of Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy and the University Center for Human Values, Emeritus at Princeton, is recognized as an honorary member of the Royal Society. This designation honors scholars without a significant body of scientific publications but with notable contributions in their fields. The Royal Society acknowledged his work in "many areas of philosophy and literary and cultural studies," including modern African ideas about race, culture and identity, and global ethics.

Appiah currently serves as Silver Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University. His career includes teaching positions at Cornell, Duke, Harvard, and Yale. His accolades include an honorary fellowship at Clare College, Cambridge; presidency of the American Academy of Arts and Letters; a National Humanities Medal presented by President Obama in 2012; and delivering Princeton's Baccalaureate address in May 2023. He holds a B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in philosophy.

Emily Carter is now a foreign member of the Royal Society. She is the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment at Princeton University and senior strategic advisor at the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). The Royal Society honored her for "her pioneering development and application of quantum-mechanics-based atomic- and multi-scale simulation tools" which have advanced materials science, sustainable energy, and carbon mitigation.

Carter has held numerous roles at Princeton including founding director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment and dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Her previous recognitions include election to multiple prestigious academies such as the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. She earned her bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley in chemistry and her doctoral degree from Caltech.

Jo Dunkley is named a fellow for her work in cosmology as Princeton's Joseph Henry Professor of Physics and Astrophysical Sciences. The Royal Society cited her contributions to "cosmology, studying the origins and evolution of the universe," noting her leadership roles in projects like Atacama Cosmology Telescope and Simons Observatory.

Dunkley's career includes significant involvement with European Space Agency’s Planck satellite project and NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), earning her team prestigious awards such as the Breakthrough Prize in 2017. Her other honors include being named an Officer of the Order of British Empire (OBE). She holds degrees from Cambridge (undergraduate/master's) in physics, a Ph.D. from Oxford in astrophysics, pursued postdoctoral studies at Princeton before joining its faculty in 2016.

Erin Schuman completed her Ph.D. at Princeton in philosophy in 1990 and is now a foreign member recognized by the Royal Society as well as being founding director at Max Planck Institute for Brain Research.

Read more on this announcement on the Royal Society website.