Siebel among three U. of I. scholars and alumni elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

CS @ ILLINOIS alumnus Thomas Siebel (MS CS ’85) was one of three individuals affiliated with the University of Illinois to be elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) this year. The others are Phyllis M. Wise, the chancellor of the Urbana campus, and Frederick E. Hoxie, Swanlund Professor of History at Illinois.

One of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies, the academy is also a leading center for independent policy research. Members contribute to academy publications and to studies of science and technology policy, energy and global security, social policy and American institutions, and the humanities, arts and education.

“Election to the academy honors individual accomplishment and calls upon members to serve the public good,” academy President Leslie C. Berlowitz said Wednesday. “We look forward to drawing on the knowledge and expertise of these distinguished men and women to advance solutions to the pressing policy challenges of the day.”

Members of the 2013 class include winners of the Nobel Prize; the National Medal of Science; the Lasker Award; the Pulitzer and the Shaw prizes; the Fields Medal; MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships; the Kennedy Center Honors; and Grammy, Emmy, Academy and Tony awards.

The new class will be inducted at a ceremony on Oct. 12 at the academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“This is a very significant and well-deserved recognition for Chancellor Wise, professor Hoxie, and Tom Siebel,” said Bob Easter, the president of the university. “Their honors reflect the dedication to excellence and positive impact on society that are among the core values of the University of Illinois.”

Siebel, the chairman and chief executive officer of C3 Energy, a software company that helps reduce an organization’s carbon footprint, is recognized as one of the world’s top philanthropists, having created The Siebel Foundation and The Meth Project Foundation to improve education, scholarship, community life and the prevention of teen drug use. He continues to generously support the university, where he established the Siebel Center for Computer Science and endowed two professorships. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in history in 1975, a master of business administration in 1983, a master of science in computer science in 1985, and an honorary doctorate of engineering in 2006, all at Illinois.

Wise, who also is a vice president of the U. of I., has served in senior leadership roles at three major public research universities. Prior to coming to Illinois in October 2011, she had been at the University of Washington and served as interim president during the 2010-2011 academic year. From 2002-2005, she was the dean of the College of Biological Sciences at the University of California at Davis. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College and a doctorate from the University of Michigan.

She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, among her many honors and awards.

Wise was a recipient of the Excellence in Science Award from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology and of the Women in Endocrinology Mentor Award.

Hoxie is a Center for Advanced Study professor of history and holds appointments in the College of Law and in the university’s American Indian Studies Program.

He has published more than a dozen books on U.S. Indian policy, the history of Native American communities, and the meaning of indigenous history in modern society. He is also the editor of the Encyclopedia of North American Indians and a co-author of “The People: A History of Native America.” His most recent book is “This Indian Country: American Indian Activists and the Place They Made” (Penguin, 2012).

A winner of the Western History Association’s lifetime achievement award in American Indian history, Hoxie has served as a trustee of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian and of Amherst College, and has been a member of the executive council of the Organization of American Historians and the president of the American Society of Ethnohistory.

Since its founding in 1780, the academy has elected leading “thinkers and doers” from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the 20th. The current membership includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.