Arts and Sciences - Tufts University

Points of Pride

The School of Arts and Sciences is extremely proud of all of the prestigious accomplishments of our faculty and students. These achievements illustrate excellence in the areas of research and scholarship, service and teaching. Listed below is a sampling of some of the celebrated successes of our faculty and students.

School of Arts and Sciences Faculty Awards and Highlights

  • Tufts boasts more than 10 Fulbright Fellows in recent years.
  • 8 members of the faculty have been admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, including President Lawrence S. Bacow, Dean Robert J. Sternberg, Daniel Dennett, Nils Yngve Wessell, Jane Bernstein, Ray Jackendoff, Martin Sherwin, and Madeline Caviness.
  • 2 members of the faculty have been recognized with MacArthur Awards: Jay Cantor and Ayesha Jalal.
  • Mitch McVey, Assistant Professor of Biology, received in 2007 a National Science Foundation CAREER award, which will fund the research that Dr. McVey's lab is doing to discern how different genetic pathways dynamically interact to repair damaged DNA. In addition, the award will be utilized to develop a mentoring and outreach program within the Biology Department to encourage students to pursue research-oriented scientific careers.
  • In 2008, David Walt, a Professor in the Department of Chemistry, was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering. In 2006, he was recognized with a prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute Grant.
  • Martin J. Sherwin, Professor in the Department of History, and biographer Kai Bird have been awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for biography for American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2006), their book on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who led the Manhattan Project, which resulted in the development and use of the atomic bomb in August 1945.
  • Marina Bers, Assistant Professor of Child Development, was one of 20 people in the United States to receive the 2005 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor given by the US government to promising and groundbreaking investigators who are starting their independent research careers.
  • Virginia Jackson, Associate Professor of English, was recently awarded the 2006 Christian Gauss Award for the Best Book in Literary Criticism by Phi Beta Kappa.
  • In recent years, the Tufts faculty has included:
    • 8 Ford Foundation Fellows,
    • 6 Guggenheim Fellows,
    • 2 National Endowment for the Humanities Residents,
    • 11 Rockefeller Fellows,
    • 1 Alexander von Humbolt Fellow, and
    • numerous other honors.

School of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Awards and Highlights

  • Roughly 40% of Tufts undergraduates have an overseas study experience, placing Tufts among the top five research universities. The Kaplan College Guide named Tufts one of America's 25 Hot Schools, recognizing it as the "Hottest for Studying Abroad."
  • Tufts is an acknowledged leader in producing Peace Corps volunteers, among the top five colleges and universities in recent years.
  • During the 2004-2005 academic year, Tufts undergraduates experienced a 78% acceptance rate to medical school, compared to the national average of 48% that year.
  • In recent years, Tufts has produced:
    • More than 175 Fulbright Scholars - Tufts has been among the top five universities in producing Fulbright Scholars for some time
    • 4 Truman Scholars (The Truman Scholarship is the most prestigious graduate scholarship awarded to students for their commitment and interest in public service)
    • 4 Marshall Scholars
    • 1 Rhodes Scholar
    • 4 Beinecke Scholars
    • 3 Goldwater Scholars
    • 2 Luce Scholars
    • More than 260 recipients of major national scholarships and fellowships
  • The School of Arts and Sciences has experienced a record applicant pool for undergraduate admissions in 12 of the past 13 years.
  • The Class of 2010 is the first A&S class to enroll with a mean SAT greater than 1400 and 83% rank in the top 10% of their high school class.

School of Arts and Sciences Graduate Awards and Highlights

  • The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) has the largest number of graduate students at Tufts, with an average yearly enrollment of 1000 graduate students.
  • In 2008, Tali Ditman, a recent Psychology doctoral alumna, was awarded the Northeastern Association of Graduate School's (NAGS) Doctoral Dissertation Award for 2007-2008. The title of Tali's dissertation is the "Neural Indices of Discourse Comprehension," and her advisor was Phil Holcomb, Professor of Psychology. This is a highly esteemed award and includes competition from more than 120 prominent graduate schools in the US and Canada. Tali Ditman in the first Tufts recipient of this prestigious award.
  • In 2006, GSAS awarded 36 doctoral degrees, 28% more than ten years ago, and 332 masters degrees, an increase of 17%.
  • Several students have received NSF Graduate Research Fellowships and Fulbright Scholarships to do dissertation research across the world. Most recently, Jocelyn Muller, a Biology Ph.D. student, and Katherine Handwerger, a Psychology Ph.D. student, were awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowships and Iris Ponte, a Ph.D. student in Child Development, and Neilesh Bose, a Ph.D. student in History, won Fulbright Doctoral Dissertation Awards.
  • In the fall of 2006, Child Development graduate alumna, Amanda Sequin, was one of two Massachusetts educators and 100 nationwide who were honored with a $25,000 prize presented by the Superintendent of Boston Schools and representatives of the Milken Foundation at a surprise school assembly. These National Educator prizes are sometimes referred to as "The Oscars of Teaching."

 

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