The American Academy of Arts and Sciences announced today (April 18) that three faculty from the University of Wisconsin–Madison were elected to the 2018 class of members.

Founded in 1780, the American Academy honors leaders in science, the arts, business and American life. Other members elected this year include former president Barack Obama, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and actor Tom Hanks. Alexander Hamilton, Charles Darwin and Martin Luther King Jr. are among those previously recognized by the Academy.

The newly elected members from UW–Madison are:

Robert C. Landick, the Charles Yanofsky Professor of Biochemistry and Bacteriology. Landick researches how DNA’s instructions are translated into proteins in cells, uncovering the dynamics of the molecules essential to life. A science director at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, Landick applies his work in the search for new antibiotics and he has contributed to developing new biofuel-producing strains of yeast.