Two USC faculty members have been elected to the American Academy of Arts andSciences in recognition of their "distinguished contributions to science,scholarship, public affairs and the arts."

The new fellows are mathematician and biologist Michael Waterman and conductorand violinist Paul Zukofsky.

In addition, Barbara Herman, a former USC philosophy professor known for herwritings on Immanuel Kant, was elected to the academy. Herman had been nominatedprior to leaving USC in August to join UCLA's faculty.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based academy was founded in 1780 by John Adams "tocultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor,dignity and happiness of a free, independent and virtuous people."

The election of 162 new fellows and 21 foreign honorary members was announcedApril 14. Waterman and Zukofksy join three other current USC academy fellows:economist Richard Easterlin; philosopher Stephen Toulmin, who holds the Henry R.Luce chair in the Center for Multiethnic and Transnational Studies; andneuroscientist Richard Thompson, who is the Keck Professor of Psychology andBiological Sciences and director of the Neurosciences Program.

Waterman is a professor of mathematics and biological sciences and holder of theUSC Associates Chair in Natural Sciences. His specialties include mathematicalapproaches to molecular biology and studies of human genetics.

With population geneticist Simon Tavare, Waterman leads a team of USCprobabilists, statisticians and molecular biologists in the study ofmathematical, statistical and computational methods of analysis of DNA, RNA andprotein sequences.

He also is involved in the Human Genome Initiative, a 25-year project sponsoredby the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy to create newmethodologies for recording and deciphering the DNA and protein sequencescomprising the genome - a molecular encyclopedia of genetic information. In 1990,he was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement ofScience. He is also the author of dozens of articles, many relating to DNA andRNA studies, and the editor of several books.

Earlier this spring, Waterman received a Guggenheim Fellowship for furtherresearch in computational methods for DNA and protein sequences. The researchwill take him to Stanford University and the European Biology Laboratories, inCambridge, England.

Zukofsky has been director of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute since 1992. Arenowned violinist and composer, he is a champion of 20th century music.

As a musician, he has given the world premieres of works by many leadingcomposers, including Milton Babbitt, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Philip Glass,Glacinto Scelsi, William Schuman, Roger Sessions and Charles Wuorinen. He alsohas made more than 50 recordings.

As a conductor, Zukofsky has recorded the premieres of all three of ArturSchnabel's symphonies as well as the opera BALDR, by Jon Leifs.

In addition, he is the president of Musical Observations, a nonprofit companydedicated to recording 20th-century music and publishing research in the field.

Another of Zukofsky's specialties is research that helps musicians perform music- particularly new music. At the Bell Laboratories, he studied for many years thebiomechanics of violin playing. He has also invented a metric modulation slidechart which allows composers, conductors and musicians to translate note valuesbetween traditional and contemporary works. In another invention designed toexpedite the performance of new music, he created a programmable metronome thathelps musicians keep track of frequently vacillating meter changes.