Broadbelt Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Northwestern Engineering’s Linda Broadbelt has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies.

Broadbelt and fellow Northwestern University faculty members Joseph Hupp, Vicky Kalogera, Thomas McDade, Elizabeth McNally, and Catherine Woolley are among this year’s class of 252 artists, scholars, scientists, and leaders in the public, nonprofit, and private sectors.

Broadbelt is Sarah Rebecca Roland Professor and professor of chemical and biological engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering. She also serves as associate dean for research at McCormick.

A member of the National Academy of Engineering, Broadbelt is internationally recognized for contributions in complex kinetics modeling of hydrocarbon chemistry, particularly for the development of automated mechanism generation techniques and methods for specification of rate coefficients. She applies her computational expertise to diverse fields, including catalysis, degradation kinetics, and biological pathway identification. Much of Broadbelt’s work has been adopted by industry.

The Academy was founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, and others who believed the new republic should honor exceptionally accomplished individuals and engage them in advancing the public good. The Academy’s dual mission remains essentially the same 240 years later with honorees from increasingly diverse fields and with the work now focused on the arts and humanities, democracy and justice, education, global affairs and science.