Joseph Bass, MD, PhD, has been selected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the oldest general scientific society in the United States.

The 2026 class of members includes more than 250 scientists, engineers and innovators spanning scientific disciplines, recognized for their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements.

Joseph Bass, MD, PhD, is the Charles F. Kettering Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolism and directs the Center for Diabetes and Metabolism.  His laboratory investigates how circadian clocks coordinate metabolic processes across tissues, with implications for obesity, diabetes, sleep loss, aging and cardiometabolic disease.

Bass and his colleagues were among the first to demonstrate that mutations in core clock genes can cause obesity, insulin dysfunction and metabolic syndrome, establishing circadian regulation as a central regulator of energy balance. His work has advanced the understanding of how meal timing, nutrient composition and sleep–wake cycles interact with molecular clocks to influence metabolic health.

In 2025, Bass was elected to the National Academy of Medicine and received the Endocrine Society’s 2023 Roy O. Greep Award for Outstanding Research.

“I am deeply appreciative of the honor of election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and to the many trainees, colleagues, friends and mentors here at Northwestern without whom this recognition would not have been achieved,” Bass said. “As a musician in my earliest years of education, I am especially mindful of the bridge that the Academy has long created between the arts, humanities and sciences, a unity that to me is the strongest link to creativity and the joy of learning.”