Psychology professor emerita Elizabeth Ligon Bjork has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Altogether, 252 leaders–in academia, the arts, industry, journalism, philanthropy, policy, research and science–have been named in this year’s cohort of new members.
The Academy is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies, whose charter is “founded on ideals that celebrate the life of the mind, the importance of knowledge, and the belief that the arts and sciences are necessary to the interest, honor, dignity and happiness of a free, independent and virtuous people.”
Academy membership includes a wide range of notable individuals from George Washington and Albert Einstein to UCLA’s Nobel Prize winner Andrea Ghez, Pulitzer Prize winner Jared Diamond and Chancellor Julio Frenk.
Excerpted from UCLA Newsroom:
Professor emerita of psychology
UCLA College (Photo Credit: UCLA)
Forgetting, struggle and even mistakes can be some of the most powerful tools for learning, according to Bjork, a leader in the study of human memory and a principal investigator at the UCLA Bjork Learning and Forgetting Lab. Her work has explored how brain processes like “goal-directed forgetting” — the mind’s ability to let go of information that is no longer useful — can help to make memory more flexible, efficient and useful. Her research has also illuminated how learning works best when it’s a little harder than we expect. By incorporating “desirable difficulties” — spacing out study sessions, mixing study topics, and even introducing small challenges or interruptions — we force our brains to work harder to retrieve and process information, with that extra effort strengthening memory and improving understanding. Bridging laboratory discoveries with real-world classroom settings, Bjork’s work has reshaped how educators think about teaching and how everyone can learn more effectively.
Altogether, four UCLA faculty from across campus will be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences this year.
Read the full story, in the UCLA Newsroom: newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-professors-american-academy-arts-sciences-2026