A Sterling Professorship is the highest academic rank at Yale University, awarded to a tenured faculty member considered one of the best in his or her field. Traditionally, there are only 27 at any one time, though there are currently more.

The professorships are named for and funded by an approximately $10 million endowment left by John William Sterling Yale 1864.

The first Sterling Professor was chemist John Johnson, named in 1920.

Other past recipients include Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas (Law), Wilbur Lucius Cross (English), Jaroslav Pelikan (history), Nobel Prize winner James Tobin (Economics), and C. Vann Woodward (History).

Among the most famous current Sterling Professors are legal scholar Bruce Ackerman , Nobel Prize-winning chemist Sidney Altman, literary critic Harold Bloom, economist William Nordhaus , political scientist James C. Scott, and Head Start founder Edward Zigler . Current Sterling Professors Emeriti include political scientist Robert A. Dahl, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Brion Davis , mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, historian and former Yale President Howard Lamar and architectural historian Vincent Scully .

Current Sterling Professors

• Bruce Ackerman , Law and Political Science
• Sidney Altman, Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology and Chemistry
• Harold Bloom, Humanities
• Mirjan Damaska , Law
• Owen Fiss , Law
• Richard Flavell , Immunobiology
• Gerhard Giebisch , Physiology
• Abraham Goldstein , Law
• Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria , Hispanic and Comparative Literature
• Donald Kagan, Classics and History
• Anthony Kronman , Law
• John Langbein , Law and Legal History
• Richard Lifton , Genetics
• Jerry Mashaw , Law
• David Mayhew , Political Science
• Giuseppe Mazzotta , Italian Language and Literature
• Ira Mellman , Cell Biology
• Peter Moore, Chemistry and Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
• William Nordhaus , Economics
• Annabel Patterson , English
• Peter Philips , Economics
• Frank Ruddle , Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology
• Herbert Scarf, Economics
• Alan Schwartz , Law
• James C. Scott, Political Science
• Carolyn Slayman , Genetics
• Jonathan Spence, History
• Joan Steitz , Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
• Thomas Steitz , Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
• Karl Turekian , Geology and Geophysics
• Sherman Weissman , Genetics and Medicine
• Edward Zigler , Child Study Center