Five U. scholars elected to Academy of Arts & Sciences

History professors James McPherson and William Jordan GS ’73, sociology professor Paul DiMaggio, architecture professor Guy Nordenson and politics professor Philip Pettit were among the 210 fellows elected for their leadership in the sciences, the humanities and the arts, business, public affairs and the non-profit sector.

“These remarkable men and women have made singular contributions to their fields, and to the world,” Emilio Bizzi, the president of the academy, said in a statement. “By electing them as members, the Academy honors them and their work, and they, in turn, honor us.”

McPherson, an American Civil War historian, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for his book “Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era,” was named the 2000 Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities by the National Council on the Humanities. In 2004, he delivered the Baccalaureate address following his retirement after 42 years of teaching.

Jordan, who specializes in medieval history and English constitutional history, is a former director of the Program in Medieval Studies. A vice president of the American Catholic Historical Association since January, Jordan has authored several books, including “A Tale of Two Monasteries: Westminster and Saint-Denis in the Thirteenth Century,” which is due to be published this year by the University Press. He is also editor-in-chief of the first supplemental volume of “The Dictionary of the Middle Ages.”

DiMaggio, a former director of Yale’s Program on NonProfit Organizations, studies organizations and their business practices.

Nordenson focuses on architecture and engineering. He has recently worked on Simmons Hall at MIT and the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Mo. In January 2009, Nordenson was awarded the American Institute of Architects’ 2009 Institute Honors for Collaborative Achievement prize. In 1997, he founded the engineering firm, Guy Nordenson and Associates, in New York after 20 years of practicing in both New York and San Francisco.

Pettit works on moral and political theory and issues in philosophical psychology and social ontology. His books include “The Common Mind,” “Republicanism,” “A Theory of Freedom” and “Rules, Reasons and Norms.”

Robert Caro ’57, known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning biographies of urban planner Robert Moses and former U.S. president Lyndon Johnson, was also elected to the academy. In 2007, Caro was named a Holtzbrick Distinguished Visitor at the American Academy in Berlin.