The 2025 class of Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) includes four investigators from The Ohio State University, all affiliated with the College of Arts and Sciences.

The AAAS Fellowship, recognizing scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications, is one of the most prestigious honors a U.S. scientist can receive. Fellows are elected by their academic peers.

“This year’s fellows have devoted their careers to research and teaching that both develop foundational knowledge and address local and global challenges—from artificial intelligence and data science to gene regulation and ecosystem management,” said David Horn, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Election to the AAAS recognizes the scale of their impact on the fields in which they work, and on the students they prepare for exciting futures. The College of Arts and Sciences is proud to have them as colleagues and joins in celebrating their success.”

The college' newest Fellows are Tanya Berger-Wolf, professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering and the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology in the College of Arts and Sciences; Stuart Ludsin, professor in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology and co-director of the Aquatic Ecology Laboratory; Steven MacEachern, College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Statistics; and Michael Poirier, professor in the Department of Physics.

Berger-Wolf received the recognition for distinguished contributions to the field of computer science, particularly for interdisciplinary, cutting-edge research in the area of computational ecology and artificial intelligence for science. She also serves as director of the Translational Data Analytics Institute.

“I am deeply honored by this recognition,” Berger-Wolf said. “My work sits at an unusual intersection: foundational AI research on one side, and the urgent science of biodiversity and the practice of conservation on the other, and I am glad this award acknowledges that both matter and that the distance between them can be closed. This recognition also reflects the growing community of brilliant, passionate scientists working where AI and the science of nature meet, and I am proud to be part of it. I am grateful to the mentors who, for over twenty years, believed that a seemingly impractical research idea was worth pursuing and a risky nonprofit was worth building.”

Ludsin was named to the Fellows class for distinguished contributions to interdisciplinary science at the nexus of limnology, fisheries ecology, global change biology and ecosystem management. 

“I am truly humbled to be named a 2025 AAAS Fellow, a recognition I never expected given the highly applied nature of my research,” Ludsin said. “This honor reflects the creativity, hard work and unwavering dedication of the many outstanding students, post-docs, support staff, mentors and colleagues with whom I have been fortunate to collaborate.”

MacEachern joins previous AAAS Fellows for distinguished contributions in Bayesian methodology and computation, and for outstanding leadership and service in advancing statistical education, research, and professional engagement. He also holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Psychology.

“It is a huge honor to join colleagues in the department and college as a AAAS Fellow,” MacEachern said. “I am fortunate to have found my way to the rich, energetic and ever-changing discipline of statistics with its central role in all things connected to data—including AI.  It has been a privilege to teach at a land-grant university and to work on research with mind-blowing students and colleagues in the friendly, supportive and intellectually vibrant atmosphere here at Ohio State and in the larger community."

Poirier was recognized for distinguished contributions to the fields of gene regulation and chromatin biology, particularly for biophysical studies of pioneer transcription factors and chromatin dynamics.

"I am humbled by this honor and extremely grateful to the mentors, collaborators and students who have made my lab’s research so rewarding,” Poirier said. “I have been privileged to work with exceptional graduate students and postdocs at Ohio State who form the core of our lab and make our pursuit of team science both fun and rewarding.”

The 2025 class includes 449 scientists, engineers and innovators spanning 24 scientific disciplines. The new Fellows will be celebrated in Washington, D.C., at the end of May.