Six Faculty Members at Albert Einstein College of Medicine Named 2014 AAAS Fellows

Newswise — November 24, 2014—(BRONX, NY)—Six faculty members at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers. This year, 401 members have been awarded this honor by AAAS because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.

The 2014 AAAS Fellows at Einstein are:

• Aviv Bergman, Ph.D.– Elected for drawing upon concepts from physics, mathematics, computer science, and biology to address problems in a broad range of biological inquiries, spanning evolutionary systems biology to cancer. Dr. Bergman is professor and chair, systems & computational biology, professor of pathology and of neuroscience and the Harold and Muriel Chair in Systems & Computational Biology.

• Margaret Kielian, Ph.D.– Elected for distinguished contributions to the field of virology, particularly for studies on the alphavirus and flavivirus membrane fusion proteins and on virus entry and exit. Dr. Kielan is professor of cell biology and Samuel H. Golding Chair in Microbiology.

• Richard Kitsis, M.D.– Elected for distinguished contributions to fundamental and translational aspects of cell death, particularly for originating and driving the field of cell death in the heart. Dr. Kitsis is professor of medicine and of cell biology, the Dr. Gerald and Myra Dorros Chair in Cardiovascular Disease and director of the Wilf Family Cardiovascular Research Institute at Einstein and attending physician, cardiology at Montefiore Medical Center.

• U. Thomas Meier, Ph.D.– Elected for distinguished contributions to the field of RNA biology, particularly for elucidating RNA-protein complexes and their roles in RNA modification and stabilization and in human disease. Dr. Meier is professor of anatomy & structural biology.

• Robert Singer, Ph.D. – Elected for distinguished contributions to the development and application of imaging technologies and insights into the kinetics and spatial distributions of single mRNAs in living cells. Dr. Singer is professor and co-chair of anatomy & structural biology, professor of neuroscience and of cell biology, co-director of the Gruss Lipper Biophotonics Center and of the Integrated Imaging Program, and the Harold and Muriel Chair in Anatomy & Structural Biology.

• Jan Vijg, Ph.D.– Elected for distinguished contributions to the fields of mutagenesis and aging, development of innovative mouse models. Dr. Vijg is professor and chair of genetics, professor of ophthalmology & visual sciences and the Lola and Saul Kramer Chair in Molecular Genetics.

New AAAS Fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin on Saturday, February 14, 2015 from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2015 AAAS Annual Meeting in San Jose, California. This year’s AAAS Fellows will be formally announced in the AAAS News & Notes section of the journal Science on November 28, 2014.

The tradition of AAAS Fellows began in 1874. Currently, members can be considered for the rank of Fellow if nominated by the steering groups of the Association’s 24 sections, or by any three Fellows who are current AAAS members (so long as two of the three sponsors are not affiliated with the nominee’s institution), or by the AAAS chief executive officer. Fellows must have been continuous members of AAAS for four years by the end of the calendar year in which they are elected.

Each steering group reviews the nominations of individuals within its respective section and a final list is forwarded to the AAAS Council, which votes on the aggregate list.

The council is the policymaking body of the association, chaired by the AAAS president, and consisting of the members of the board of directors, the retiring section chairs, delegates from each electorate and each regional division, and two delegates from the National Association of Academies of Science.

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About Albert Einstein College of MedicineAlbert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University is one of the nation’s premier centers for research, medical education and clinical investigation. During the 2014-2015 academic year, Einstein is home to 742 M.D. students, 212 Ph.D. students, 102 students in the combined M.D./Ph.D. program, and 292 postdoctoral research fellows. The College of Medicine has more than 2,000 full-time faculty members located on the main campus and at its clinical affiliates. In 2014, Einstein received $158 million in awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This includes the funding of major research centers at Einstein in aging, intellectual development disorders, diabetes, cancer, clinical and translational research, liver disease, and AIDS. Other areas where the College of Medicine is concentrating its efforts include developmental brain research, neuroscience, cardiac disease, and initiatives to reduce and eliminate ethnic and racial health disparities. Its partnership with Montefiore Medical Center, the University Hospital and academic medical center for Einstein, advances clinical and translational research to accelerate the pace at which new discoveries become the treatments and therapies that benefit patients. Through its extensive affiliation network involving Montefiore, Jacobi Medical Center—Einstein’s founding hospital, and three other hospital systems in the Bronx, Brooklyn and on Long Island, Einstein runs one of the largest residency and fellowship training programs in the medical and dental professions in the United States. For more information, please visit www.einstein.yu.edu, read our blog, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and view us on YouTube.