ANN ARBOR—Nancy Cantor, University of Michigan provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and professor of psychology, and Donald S. Lopez Jr., the Arthur Thurnau Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies and chair of the U-M Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Cantor was elected to the Educational and Scientific Administration Section of Social Arts and Sciences and Lopez to the Philosophy and Theology Section of Humanities

They are among 154 new fellows and 15 foreign honorary members elected in April in recognition of their distinguished contributions to sciences, scholarship, public affairs and the arts. They will be inducted at a formal ceremony at the House of the Academy Oct. 14.

“This is a stellar honor for what we value most—outstanding academic achievement,” said U-M President Lee C. Bollinger. “I’m pleased for both Donald and Nancy, and for the University.”

Cantor, who was dean of the U-M’s Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies prior to her appointment as provost, also is a research scientist in the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the Institute for Social Research.

Cantor’s research has focused on how human social intelligence connects individuals to their social environments, as individuals perceive opportunities and uncertainties in situations, set goals and expectations, anticipate outcomes, modulate effort, and retrospectively try to understand what happened and why.

Cantor’s academic career has been divided between the U-M and Princeton University. Following completion of doctoral work at Stanford University she was assistant professor and then associate professor of psychology at Princeton, joining the U-M in 1983 as associate professor. She was promoted to professor in 1987 and served as area chair for personality psychology and associate dean for faculty programs in the Graduate School. She rejoined Princeton in 1991 as chair of the Department of Psychology, returning to the U-M in 1996 as dean of the Graduate School.

She has received a number of honors including the Dissertation Award of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology and the U-M’s Henry Russel Award and Faculty Recognition Award.

Cantor has been a member of study sections and advisory boards at the National Science Foundation, and served on the task force that recommended establishing a new Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences. She was a member of the National Research Council (NRC) Committee on National Needs in Biomedical and Behavioral Science Research and a member and vice chair of the NRC Committee on Women in Science and Engineering. She recently served as a member of the NRC Advisory Committee for the Office of Scientific and Engineering Personnel and the Congressional Commission on Military Training and Gender-Related Issues.

She currently is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, Advisory Committee for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences of the National Science Foundation and the DaimlerChrysler Scientific Advisory Board.

Lopez joined the U-M in 1989 after holding teaching posts at the University of Virginia and Middlebury College. He specializes in late Indian Mahayana Buddhism and in Tibetan Buddhism and commands classical and colloquial Tibetan.

In addition to numerous articles, he is the author of “Buddhism,” forthcoming (2001) from Penguin UK; “Buddhism and Science: A Historical Critique”; “Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West,” which won the 1999 Excellence in the Study of Religion Award of the American Academy of Religion; “Elaborations on Emptiness: Uses of the Heart Sutra”; “The Heart Sutra Explained: Indian and Tibetan Commentaries”; and “A Study of Svatantrika.”

Lopez’s honors include the Templeton Foundation Award; Leverhulme Research Professor, University of Bristol; U-M Faculty Recognition Awards; National Humanities Center Fellowship; LS&A Excellence in Research Award; and a number of National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships and grants.

Lopez holds a B.A. degree in religious studies from the University of Virginia and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Buddhist studies from the University of Virginia.

Nancy CantorHouse of the AcademyLee C. BollingerSchool of Graduate StudiesSociety of Experimental Social PsychologyNational Science FoundationTempleton Foundation