National Academy of Science elects new members

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) elected 100 new members and 25 foreign associates from 14 countries in May. This brings the total active membership to 2,347 and the number of foreign associates—nonvoting members with citizenship outside the US—to 487.

Election to NAS, which is more than 150 years old, recognizes scientists and engineers for their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research and is considered one of the highest scientific honors bestowed in the US. This year, 17 of the newly elected are members of the American Chemical Society or work in areas related to the chemical sciences.

The new US members are Joanna Aizenberg, Harvard University; Squire J. Booker, Pennsylvania State University; Edward Egelman, University of Virginia School of Medicine; Cynthia M. Friend, Harvard University; Lila M. Gierasch, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Paula Hammond, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Rebecca Heald, University of California, Berkeley; Masayori Inouye, Rutgers University, New Brunswick; Daniel Kahne, Harvard University; Mark Krasnow, Stanford University School of Medicine; Todd J. Martínez, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, Carnegie Mellon University; Matthew V. Tirrell, University of Chicago; Cynthia Wolberger, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; and Omar M. Yaghi, University of California, Berkeley.

The two new foreign associate members are Ben Feringa, University of Groningen, (citizenship, the Netherlands); and Jens Nielsen, Chalmers Institute of Technology (citizenship, Denmark).

In other news, NAS, along with electing new members, voted at its business session on April 30 in favor of an amendment to its bylaws that would permit the NAS Council to rescind membership for egregious violations to its Code of Conduct, including for sexual harassment. A full membership vote will be taken in June.