Margulis Named Kavli Fellow by the National Academy of Sciences

University Relations

Elizabeth Margulis

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Elizabeth Margulis, professor in the Department of Music, has been named a 2016 Kavli Fellow by the National Academy of Sciences. The honor incudes her participation in the Japanese-American Kavli Frontiers of Science Symposium Dec. 2-4 in Irvine, California.

Kavli Fellows are young scientists selected by the advisory board of the Kavli Foundation, members of the National Academy of Sciences and organizers of the Kavli/National Academy of Sciences Frontiers in Science Symposia series. The Kavli Foundation, based in Oxnard, California, supports scientific research, honors scientific achievement, and promotes public understanding of scientists and their work.

The Kavli Frontiers of Science symposium series is the National Academy of Science's premiere activity for distinguished young scientists. Attendance is by invitation only and attendees are selected from among award winners for early career scientists in the United States and abroad. Attendees include Sloan Fellows, Packard Fellows, MacArthur Genius Grantees, Pew Fellows, Searle Scholars and Presidential Early Career Awardees for Scientists and Engineers. Since the inception of the Frontiers in Science series in 1989, more than 175 of its "alumni" have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and ten have been awarded Nobel Prizes.

Margulis is director of the Music Cognition Lab at the University of Arkansas. Her research applies the methodologies of cognitive science to understanding music. Her book On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind, published by Oxford University Press, won the Wallace Berry Award from the Society for Music Theory and the 2015 ASCAP Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award. She is currently writing The Psychology of Music: A Very Short Introduction for Oxford University Press.

In 2014, Margulis participated in Science Foo Camp, or SciFoo, a similar interdisciplinary gathering of leading researchers from around the world, at the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

Inspired by experiences such as these, Margulis and novelist Padma Viswanathan, assistant professor in the Department of English, recently founded the Center for Interdisciplinary Study of Science and the Arts, which seeks to create a dynamic space for scholars and artists at the University of Arkansas whose work crosses disciplinary boundaries.