Leon Kass, the Addie Clark Harding Professor Emeritus in the Committee on Social Thought and the College at the University of Chicago, has received a 2025 Barry Prize for Distinguished Intellectual Achievement from the American Academy of Sciences and Letters.
Open to scholars across diverse fields and disciplines, the academy awards ten Barry Prizes each year to those whose work has made “outstanding contributions to humanity’s understanding and cultivation of the good, the true and the beautiful.”
Kass, a physician, molecular biologist and lifelong scholar of humanist and religious thought, was honored at a Nov. 12 ceremony in Washington, D.C. for his multidisciplinary approach to bioethics and fundamental questions of human experience.
“Dr. Kass has relentlessly reminded us to ask what it means to be human, and to be aware of how technological development may be altering that understanding,” cited the academy. “The Academy honors Dr. Kass’ distinguished contributions to humanity’s quest to understand itself and its world as it shapes its future in an era of unprecedented technological change.”
Three other UChicago professors also joined the academy: geophysicist Dorian Abbot, classics scholar Shadi Bartsch and constitutional law scholar William Baude. At the ceremony, Bartsch also presented the Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Academic Freedom of Thought, named in honor of the late UChicago president, to psychiatrist Paul McHugh.
The American Academy of Sciences and Letters promotes scholarship and honors outstanding achievement in the arts, sciences and learned professions. As members, the four UChicago scholars join a prestigious group that includes Pulitzer Prize winners and Nobel laureates.
