Anne Alstott ’87 Elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Jacquin D. Bierman Professor in Taxation Anne Alstott ’87 has been elected to the 2024 class of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
This year, the 250 members elected to the Academy come from 31 areas of expertise, spanning the physical and biological sciences, arts and humanities, social sciences, and more.
“We honor these artists, scholars, scientists, and leaders in the public, nonprofit, and private sectors for their accomplishments and for the curiosity, creativity, and courage required to reach new heights,” said David Oxtoby, President of the American Academy. “We invite these exceptional individuals to join in the Academy’s work to address serious challenges and advance the common good.”
The Academy is an honorary society and independent research center founded in 1780 by John Adams, John Hancock, and others, with a charter celebrating the arts and sciences as “necessary to the interest, honor, dignity and happiness of a free, independent and virtuous people.”
“With the broad diversity of members elected this year, we are continuing to expand on the commitment to excellence and wide-ranging expertise established by our founders,” said Chair of the Board Goodwin Liu ’98, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court. “The honor of election comes with an invitation for new members to rededicate themselves to the common good by advancing the Academy’s nonpartisan, cross-disciplinary work in the arts, democracy, education, global affairs, and science.”
Alstott studies public policy toward children and families and, more broadly, public policy over the life cycle. Her books include The Public Option (with Ganesh Sitaraman, 2019), A New Deal for Old Age (2016), No Exit: What Parents Owe Children and What Society Owes Parents (2004), and The Stakeholder Society (with Bruce Ackerman, 1999).
In addition to her professorship at the Law School, Alstott holds a secondary appointment as Professor, Yale Child Study Center, and is a Faculty Affiliate at the Yale Institution for Social and Policy Studies. From 2008 to 2011, she was the Manley O. Hudson Professor at Harvard Law School.
Her articles have been published in journals including the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, and the Columbia Law Review. She has written or co-written pieces for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post, and Slate and has appeared on NPR’s “Marketplace” and “On Point.”
Alstott received a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1987 and an A.B. in Economics, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa (junior year), and with Departmental Honors, from Georgetown University in 1984 at age 20. She worked as an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell from 1987 to 1990 and as an Attorney-Advisor in the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Policy, Office of Tax Legislative Counsel, from 1990 to 1992.
She began her teaching career at Columbia University School of Law, where she taught from 1992 to 1996. She joined the Yale Law School faculty with tenure in 1997 and remained until 2008, when she joined the Harvard Law School faculty. In 2011, she returned to Yale.
Alstott has won five teaching awards. In 1995, she won the Willis Reese Award for Excellence in Teaching at Columbia. She has received the Yale Law Women’s Faculty Excellence Award four times, in 1998, 2004, 2012, and 2017.
