Wednesday, April 30, 2003

By JEFFREY BRAINARD

The National Academy of Sciences announced the election of 72 new members on Tuesday, including 17 women, the largest number ever elected in a single year. The new class also includes at least two African-American scientists.

The new members bring the total number of women in the academy to approximately 160 out of 1,922 active members. The number of African-American scientists is now believed to total four. (Academy officials say they do not keep track of members by race.) The academy also elected 18 foreign associates from 11 countries, bringing their total to 341.

Scientists within and outside the academy have criticized it in recent years for electing relatively few female and minority-group members (The Chronicle, May 11, 2001). The issue has been a ticklish one for the academy, whose leaders have said that they value increased diversity, but not at the expense of scientific quality. Election to the academy -- sometimes compared to the College of Cardinals -- is regarded as the one of the highest honors in American science.

Academy officials have noted that scientists who are elected often have a long record of scientific achievement, and that the pool of women and members of minority groups who have such credentials is relatively small because of historical patterns of discrimination within science. However, the academy's leadership has vowed to encourage members to look for more qualified women and minority candidates and to nominate them for the body's complicated election process, the details of which are closed to the public.

The election of 17 women this year represents a significant increase from the pattern of the previous five years, when the number ranged from 7 to 11.

The African-American scholars elected this year include Edward L. Miles, a professor of marine and public affairs at the University of Washington at Seattle, who specializes in ocean policy, and Claude M. Steele, a professor of psychology and the social sciences at Stanford University, who has studied addiction and stereotypes.

The 72 new members represent 41 universities and government laboratories, which are a somewhat more diverse group than in previous years. Some scientists have said that the academy's membership has historically been overly concentrated in a handful of elite universities, and that members tend to nominate candidates from their home institutions. Stanford University had the most members elected this year, seven.

The new members, their posts, and their research affiliations are as follows:

George A. Akerlof, professor of economics, University of California at Berkeley.

Jeanne Altmann, professor, department of ecology and evolutionary biology, Princeton University.

George E. Andrews, professor of mathematics, Pennsylvania State University at University Park.

Cornelia I. Bargmann, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and professor and vice chair, department of anatomy, University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine.

Linda M. Bartoshuk, professor, departments of surgery and psychology, Yale University School of Medicine.

John D. Baxter, professor of medicine, University of California at San Francisco.

Peter Beak, professor of chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

James O. Berger, professor of statistics, Duke University. Linda B. Buck, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and principal investigator, department of neurobiology, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Dennis A. Carson, professor of medicine and director, Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, University of California at San Diego School of Medicine.

Anthony R. Cashmore, professor of biology and director, Plant Sciences Institute, University of Pennsylvania. Praveen Chaudhari, director, Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Sallie W. Chisholm, professor of environmental studies and co-director of the Earth System Initiative, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Barry S. Coller, professor of medicine and head of the Laboratory of Blood and Vascular Biology, Rockefeller University.

Jody W. Deming, professor of biological oceanography, University of Washington at Seattle.

David J. Derosier, professor of life sciences and director of the W.M. Keck Institute for Cellular Visualization, Brandeis University.

James H. Dieterich, a senior research scientist on the earthquake hazards team, U.S. Geological Survey.

William E. Dietrich, professor, department of earth and planetary sciences, University of California at Berkeley.

Yakov Eliashberg, professor of mathematics, Stanford University.

Stephen J. Elledge, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and professor, department of biochemistry and molecular genetics, Baylor College of Medicine.

John B. Fenn, professor of chemistry, Virginia Commonwealth University.

Lennard A. Fisk, professor and chairman, department of atmospheric, oceanic, and space sciences, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

David G. Forney Jr., adjunct professor, department of electrical engineering and computer science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Joanna S. Fowler, senior chemist, Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Wendy, L. Freedman, director, Observatories of the Carnegie Institution.

Fred H. Gage, professor, laboratory of genetics, Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

Solomon W. Golomb, professor of communications, University of Southern California.

Carol W. Greider, professor, department of molecular biology and genetics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Jeffrey C. Hall, professor of biology, Brandeis University. Woodland J. Hastings, professor of natural sciences, department of molecular and cellular biology, Harvard University.

Isaac M. Held, senior research scientist and head of the climate dynamics group, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Karl Hess, chair and professor, department of electrical and computer engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Arthur Horwich, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, andprofessor, department of genetics, Yale University School of Medicine.

Michael Hout, professor of sociology, University of California at Berkeley.

Rudolf Jaenisch, professor of biology and a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Roger E. Kasperson, executive director, Stockholm EnvironmentInstitute, in Sweden.

Cynthia J. Kenyon, professor of biochemistry and biophysics, University of California at San Francisco.

Richard G. Klein, professor of anthropological sciences, Stanford University.

Shrinivas R. Kulkarni, professor of astronomy and planetary sciences, California Institute of Technology.

Robert A. Lamb, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and professor of molecular and cellular biology, Northwestern University.

Judith L. Lean, research physicist, space science division, Naval Research Laboratory.

Wen-Hsiung Li, professor, department of ecology and evolution, University of Chicago.

David J. Lipman, director, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.

Martha L. Ludwig, professor, department of biological chemistry, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

Diane J. Mathis, chair in diabetes research and co-head of the immunology and immunogenetics section, Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School.

Henry J. Melosh, professor, lunar and planetary laboratory, University of Arizona.

Edward L. Miles, professor of marine and public affairs, University of Washington at Seattle.

Sidney R. Nagel, professor of physics, University of Chicago.

June B. Nasrallah, professor, department of plant biology, Cornell University.

William D. Nix, professor of engineering emeritus, department of materials science and engineering, Stanford University.

Helen R. A. Quinn, member of the permanent scientific staff and assistant to the director for education and public outreach, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

Michael Rosbash, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and professor of biology, Brandeis University.

Catharine A. Ross, professor of nutrition, Pennsylvania State University at University Park.

Linda J. Saif, professor of veterinary preventive medicine, food-animal health research program, Ohio State University Agricultural Technical Institute.

Paul L. Schechter, professor of astrophysics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

William H. Schlesinger, professor of biogeochemistry and dean, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University.

Robert J. Silbey, professor of chemistry and dean of science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Bruce D. Smith, senior scientist and curator of North American archaeology, director of the archaeobiology program, Smithsonian Institution.

Claude M. Steele, professor of psychology and social sciences, Stanford University.

Arthur L. Stinchcombe, professor emeritus, department of sociology, Northwestern University.

Robert M. Stroud, professor of biochemistry and biophysics, and of pharmaceutical chemistry, University of California at San Francisco.

Joseph S. Takahashi, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and professor of life sciences, Northwestern University.

Saul A. Teukolsky, professor of physics and astrophysics and director of the Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, Cornell University.

Michael F. Thomashow, professor of crop and soil sciences and of microbiology, Michigan State University.

James M. Tiedje, professor and director, NSF Science and Technology Center for Microbial Ecology, Michigan State University.

James L. Van Etten, professor of plant pathology, University of Nebraska at

Lincoln. Dale J. Van Harlingen, professor of physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Brian A. Wandell, professor, department of psychology, Stanford University.

Arthur Weiss, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and professor of rheumatology, University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine.

Paul A. Wender, professor of chemistry, Stanford University. Eli Yablonovitch, professor of electrical engineering, University of California at Los Angeles.

Masashi Yanagisawa, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and professor of molecular genetics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

The new foreign associates, their affiliations, and their countries of citizenship are:

Edouard Brezin, professor, laboratory of theoretical physics,

Ecole Normale Superieure (France). Haim Brezis, professor of mathematics, University of Paris VI (Pierre and Marie Curie) (France).

Juan Carlos Castilla, professor, marine-ecology group, Catholic University of Chile (Chile).

Zhu Chen, professor and director, Institute of Hematology, Shanghai Second Medical University (China).

Luis Herrera-Estrella, director of plant biotechnology and professor, Center for Research and Advanced Studies, National Polytechnic Institute (Mexico).

Avram Hershko, professor, department of biochemistry, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (Israel).

Herbert Kroemer, professor of electrical engineering and of materials, University of California at Santa Barbara (Germany).

Rosine Lallement, professor and director of research, National Center for Scientific Research in France (France).

Linda Manzanilla, investigator and professor, Institute of Anthropological Investigations, National Autonomous University of Mexico (Mexico).

Ryoji Noyori, professor of chemistry and director of the Research Center for Materials Science, Nagoya University (Japan).

Giorgio Parisi, professor, department of physics, University of Rome (Italy).

Martin C. Raff, professor, MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology, University College London (Canada).

Obaid Siddiqi, professor and director, National Center for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (India).

Tadatsugu Taniguchi, professor and chair, department of immunology, University of Tokyo (Japan).

Andrzej K. Tarkowski, professor and head of the department of embryology, and director of the Institute of Zoology, Warsaw University (Poland).

Janet Thornton, director of the European Bioinformatics Institute (Britain).

Alan C. Walker, professor of anthropology and biology, Pennsylvania State University at University Park (United Kingdom).

Ada Yonath, director of the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Micromolecular Structure and Assembly, Weizmann Institute of Sciences (Israel). _________________________________________________________________

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