- Sterling Professor
A Sterling Professorship is the highest academic rank at
Yale University , awarded to a tenured faculty member considered one of the best in his or her field. Traditionally, there are only 27 at any one time, though there are currently 40.The professorships are named for and funded by an approximately $10 million endowment left by
John William Sterling of the Yale Class of 1864, name partner in the New York law firmShearman & Sterling .The first Sterling Professor was the chemist John Johnson, who was awarded the rank in 1920.
Other past recipients include Supreme Court Justice
William O. Douglas (Law),Wilbur Lucius Cross (English),Jaroslav Pelikan (history), Nobel Prize winnerJames Tobin (Economics), andC. Vann Woodward (History).Among the most famous current Sterling Professors are legal scholar
Bruce Ackerman , Nobel Prize-winning chemistSidney Altman , literary criticHarold Bloom , economistWilliam Nordhaus , political scientistJames C. Scott , historian of ChinaJonathan Spence , medieval scholarsR. Howard Bloch ,Giuseppe Mazzotta , andMaría Rosa Menocal and Head Start founderEdward Zigler . Current Sterling Professors Emeriti include political scientistsRobert A. Dahl andCharles E. Lindblom , Pulitzer Prize-winning historianDavid Brion Davis , mathematicianBenoît Mandelbrot , historian and former Yale PresidentHoward Lamar and architectural historianVincent Scully .Yale recently awarded Sterling Professorships to
María Rosa Menocal ,John C. Tully ,Thomas D. Pollard ,Dieter Söll ,David Bromwich ,David Louis Quint ,Mary Miller , andJoseph Roach .Current Sterling Professors
*
Bruce Ackerman , Law and Political Science
*Sidney Altman , Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology and Chemistry
*R. Howard Bloch , French
*Harold Bloom , Humanities and English
*David Bromwich , English
*Peter Brooks , Comparative Literature and French
*Guido Calabresi , Law
*Mirjan Damaska , Law
*Owen Fiss , Law
*Richard Flavell , Immunobiology
*Gerhard Giebisch , Physiology
*Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria , Hispanic and Comparative Literature
*Donald Kagan , Classics and History
*Anthony Kronman , Law
*John Langbein , Law and Legal History
*Richard Lifton , Genetics
*Juan Linz , Political and Social Science
*Benoît Mandelbrot , Mathematics
*Jerry Mashaw , Law
*David Mayhew , Political Science
*Giuseppe Mazzotta , Italian Language and Literature
*Ira Mellman , Cell Biology
*María Rosa Menocal , Humanities
*Mary Miller , History of Art
*Peter Moore, Chemistry and Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
*William Nordhaus , Economics
*Annabel Patterson , English
*Peter C. B. Phillips , Economics
*Thomas D. Pollard , Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
*David Louis Quint , Comparative Literature
*Joseph Roach , Theater
*Frank Ruddle , Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology
*Herbert Scarf , Economics
*Alan Schwartz , Law
*James C. Scott , Political Science
*Vincent Scully , History of Art
*Ian Shapiro , Political Science
*Carolyn Slayman , Genetics
*Dieter Söll , Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
*Jonathan Spence , History
*Joan A. Steitz , Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
*Thomas Steitz , Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
*John C. Tully , Chemistry
*Karl Turekian , Geology and Geophysics
*Sherman Weissman , Genetics and Medicine
*Edward Zigler , Child Study Center
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