FABBS Congratulates Current and Past Leadership Elected to AAA&S and NAS

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAA&S) elected two FABBS leaders to their 2024 class of inductees – Roxane Cohen Silver, PhD, University of California-Irvine, FABBS past president (2020-2021), and Jeffrey Zacks, PhD, Washington University in St. Louis, (2024-2025).  AAA&S is one of America’s oldest and most respected honorary societies – election to the Academy means that members have made significant contributions to their respective fields.  The Academy’s members represent a broad range of disciplines and work to examine societal problems to put forward recommendations that benefit humanity.   

The National Academy of Science (NAS), elected Nora Newcombe, PhD, Temple University, FABBS past president (2018-2019).  NAS is one of the highest honors for scientists as it advises federal leaders on matters related to science, engineering, and medicine. 

Roxanne Cohen Silver 

Silver specializes in research about stress and how people cope with traumatic life events.  She has served as the lead investigator of a longitudinal study about the 9/11 terrorist attack’s impact on mental health and developed strategies for adults and adolescents in Indonesia to cope with the trauma or repeated natural disasters.  Silver and her research team at UC-Irvine also led an NSF-supported nationwide longitudinal study to assess the psychological repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic in February 2020. 

Jeffrey Zacks 

Zacks heads the Dynamic Cognition Laboratory, where researchers investigate the interplay between brain representations and real-world stimuli in cognitive processes including: event comprehension; spatial navigation; and the brain’s response to film and media.  Zacks also examined the neuroscience of movie-watching in Flicker: Your Brain on Movies. 

Nora Newcombe 

Newcombe, has produced groundbreaking research looking at the role of spatial development in children and adults.  From 2006 to 2018, Newcombe led the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center which was funded by an NSF grant.  She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Society of Experimental Psychologists.