Miller's plays, including 1947's "All My Sons," 1949's "Death of a Salesman" and 1953's "The Crucible" have become part of the canon of American literature.
"Death of a Salesman" alone won the New York Drama Critics Circle award, the Tony award for best play, the Donaldson award and the Pulitzer Prize in drama in 1949.
William J. Morgan
Morgan helped formulate the theory of plate tectonics, which explains the motion of earth's surface in terms of large, independently-moving plates.
The theory of plate tectonics radically transformed the field of geology by offering new explanations for earthquakes and volcanoes, the development of similar species on different continents and the dynamic nature of the earth's crust.
Morgan was educated at Georgia Institute of Technology and at Princeton. He has taught at Princeton, where he is also Taylor Chair of Geography, since 1966.
Janet L. Norwood
Norwood is an economist and senior fellow at the Urban Institute who served as U.S. Commissioner of Labor Statistics from 1979-91.
Norwood developed the Employment Cost Index and made the Consumer Price Index, a measure of the cost of a representative "basket of goods," into a more accurate indicator. She also chaired the Advisory Council on Unemployment Compensation from 1993-96.
The economist has previously won the Department of Labor's prestigious Arnow Award and the National Public Service Award.
John Rawls
Joining the Harvard Faculty as Professor of Philosophy in 1962, in the early 1970s Rawls wrote A Theory of Justice, considered by some to be the greatest work of political philosophy written in English in the 20th century.
A graduate of Princeton, Rawls taught at Christ Church college, Oxford and Cornell University before coming to Harvard.
A Theory of Justice has inspired criticism and analysis from authorities across the world for its application of philosophical tenets to problems of politics and economics. Rawls' thinking has influenced the modern fields of ethics, law and political science.
Emily D. T. Vermeule
Vermeule, Zemurray Stone-Radcliffe professor emerita at Harvard, is a distinguished classicist and poet.
Vermuele's work has involved Greek archaeology and classical Greek philology. She has translated classical works and has led digs in Cyprus, Turkey, Libya and Greece.
In 1980, the American Philological Association awarded Vermeule the Charles J. Goodwin award for her book Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry. Vermuele was the Association's president during 1995.
--David A. Fahrenthold, Melissa Rose Langsam and Barbara E. Martinez contributed to the reporting of this article.