Chancellor Mnookin among 9 UW faculty members being inducted into AAA&S

Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin is among nine faculty members from UW–Madison being inducted this weekend to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences at a ceremony in Cambridge, Mass.

Mnookin was elected to AAA&S in 2020, while she was dean of the UCLA School of Law. A national expert on law, forensic science and evidence, Mnookin’s scholarship includes rich historical and contemporary accounts of how the legal system has responded to and been transformed by novel forms of scientific evidence, including photography, fingerprint identification and DNA.

At UCLA, Mnookin founded and was co-director of PULSE @ UCLA Law (the Program on Understanding Law, Science & Evidence), and her publications have focused on issues relating to forensic science, such as fingerprint identification, handwriting expertise and DNA evidence.

She received her A.B. from Harvard University, her J.D. from Yale Law School, and a PhD in History and Social Study of Science and Technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Also elected in 2020 were six UW–Madison professors: bioethicist R. Alta Charo, psychologist Seth Pollak, philosopher Steven Nadler, historian Louise Young, geographer Lisa Naughton and chemist Martin Zanni.

This year, science communication expert Dietram Scheufele and chemist Shannon Stahl were selected for induction.

“I want to congratulate all of my fellow inductees,” Mnookin says. “Inclusion in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences is a tremendous honor, and I am thrilled to be in such distinguished company.”

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded in 1780 to honor excellence in American scholarship and to serve the public good through new ideas that address national and global challenges.

Induction ceremonies were not held in 2020 and 2021 due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.