Malcolm Hewitt Wiener, founder of the Institute for Aegean Prehistory (INSTAP, 1982) and the Laboratory for Archaeological Science named after him at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (ASCSA, 1992), was elected associate member of the Academy of Athens in a plenary session on Thursday.
Wiener was born in Tsingtao, China in 1935 and is a graduate of Harvard College (Classical Studies, 1957) and of the Harvard Law School (1963). He is a founder and director of private investment companies in the United States, and a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, and a founder of the Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Social Policy. 
As an Aegean prehistorian, he has published extensively on issues related to the Minoan and Mycenean culture. His research interests include absolute chronology in the Aegean during the second millennium, the influence of Minoan culture on Mycenaean Greece, and the effect of climate change and human intervention in the collapse of civilisations. 
Through INSTAP and the ASCSA he has supported archaeological excavations and research related to Aegean prehistory, most of which he follows personally, including at Akrotiri (Santorini), Mycenae, and Tsepi in the Marathon area. For decades he has actively funded studies and excavations related to prehistoric Greece, contributing significantly to progress in research at a very difficult time for humanistic studies.
The new facilities of the Wiener Lab at ASCSA offer state-of-the art analysis for Greek and foreign archaeologists; the Lab is involved in the analysis of the extraordinary finding in 2016 of over a thousand skeletons of shackled individuals found by the Greek archaeological authorities in salvage excavations at the Faliro Delta.
Malcomlm H. Wiener has been awarded seven honorary degrees, including from the University of Athens, and decorated with several medals, including the Greek state's Golden Cross of the Order of Honor.

[File photo, Inauguration of new Wiener Lab facilities, June 2016. M. Wiener (L), Greek President P. Pavlopoulos (R), US Ambassador D. Pearce (C). Photo: ANA/Alexandros Vlachos]