PASADENA, Calif.--Caltech professors Michael Dickinson and Thomas Palfrey are among the 190 new fellows elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences this year. They join an assembly that was founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other scholars to provide practical solutions to pressing issues.
Their election brings the Caltech total membership to 86.
Thomas Palfrey, Caltech's Flintridge Foundation Professor of Economics and Political Science and also a Caltech grad (PhD '81), specializes in the study of voting and elections, economic and political theory, public and experimental economics, and game theory.
A central focus of Palfrey's research is how people devise strategies when faced with incomplete information. He has applied game theory to examine voting behavior in committees and elections, and bidding in auctions. He founded or cofounded several experimental labs, including the California Social Science Experimental Laboratory at UCLA, the Social Science Experimental Laboratory at Caltech, and the Princeton Social Science Experimental Laboratory, and used observations from experiments to help develop a general theory of strategic behavior with human error. Called Quantal Response Equilibrium, it has been successfully applied to study a broad range of political and economic behavior.
Michael Dickinson, the Zarem Professor of Bioengineering at Caltech, studies animal physiology and behavior. He has become well known for Robofly, a mechanical fly that sprang from his work on the neurobiology and biomechanics of fly locomotion. Throughout his career, Dickinson has used a variety of tools, such as wind tunnels, virtual reality simulators, high-speed video, and giant robotic models, to determine how the poppy seed-sized brains of these tiny insects can rapidly control aerodynamic forces.
More than a simple understanding of the material basis for insect flight, Dickinson's studies provide insight into complex systems operating on biological and physical principles: neuronal signaling within brains, the dynamics of unsteady fluid flow, the structural mechanics of composite materials, and the behavior of nonlinear systems are all linked when a fly takes wing.
"The Academy honors excellence by electing to membership remarkable men and women who have made preeminent contributions to their fields, and to the world," says Academy president Emilio Bizzi. "We are pleased to welcome into the Academy these new members to help advance our founders' goal of 'cherishing knowledge and shaping the future.'" An independent policy research center, the Academy currently focuses on science, technology, and global security; social policy and American institutions; the humanities and culture; and education.
Dickinson and Palfrey will be inducted into the Academy at a ceremony on October 11, at the organization's headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Other new members include legendary blues guitarist B. B. King, two-time cabinet secretary and former White House Chief of Staff James Baker III, and former eBay CEO Margaret Whitman, as well as foreign honorary member Pedro Almodóvar, a Spanish film director.
