Renowned biochemist Bruce Alberts, who has served on Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Board of Trustees since 2000, has been named by the American Association for the Advancement of Science to serve as editor-in-chief of its journal Science. Alberts assumes his new duties in March 2008.
Alberts, president emeritus of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and past chair of the National Research Council, is a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. The National Academy, under Dr. Alberts’s leadership, focused much of its effort on improving mathematics, science, technology and engineering education from the kindergarten through post graduate education.
“Bruce Alberts’ insight and singular understanding of the importance of science and math education to sustaining the country’s very way of life has helped to refine Carnegie Corporation’s efforts to improve math and science instruction,” said Vartan Gregorian, President of Carnegie Corporation of New York. “Bruce reminds us that math and science have become so pervasive in our daily lives that literacy in both is a de facto prerequisite for upwardly mobile employment as well as full and informed participation in our diverse democracy.”
AAAS President and Nobel laureate David Baltimore praised the selection of Alberts in a statement released December 17: “His experience, skill, and interest in all of science make him the ideal person to continue the tradition of superb editors who have made Science the premier journal for the scientific community.” Read the AAAS press release.
Alberts serves on the Carnegie Corporation-Institute for Advanced Study Commission on Mathematics and Science Education, which is assessing the current state of science and math teaching in the United States through a process that identifies and analyzes successes and failures, and will provide recommendations for improvements at the K-12 levels.
The Commission’s work is one component of Carnegie Corporation’s broad effort to create pathways to educational and economic opportunity for all Americans. By helping to generate system-wide change across the K-12 continuum, as well as at the college and university level, the Corporation’s goal is to enable many more students, including immigrants and historically underserved populations, to achieve academic success and to perform at the high levels of creative, scientific and technical knowledge and skill needed to compete in a global economy.
ABOUT CARNEGIE CORPORATION OF NEW YORK
Carnegie Corporation of New York was created by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to promote “the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding.” For more than 95 years the Corporation has carried out Carnegie’s vision of philanthropy by building on his two major concerns: international peace and advancing education and knowledge. As a private grantmaking foundation, the Corporation will invest more than $100 million this year in nonprofits to fulfill Mr. Carnegie's mission, “to do real and permanent good in this world.” The Corporation’s capital fund, originally donated at a value of about $135 million, had a market value of approximately $3 billion on September 30, 2007.