Member of the National Academy of Sciences

Membership of the National Academy of Sciences is an award granted to scientists that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of the United States judges to have made “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research”.[1][4] Membership is a mark of excellence in science and one of the highest honors that a scientist can receive.[5][6][7][8][9]

Member of the National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences Building in Washington, D.C.
Awarded for	distinguished and continuing achievements in original research[1]
Sponsored by	National Academy of Sciences
Date	Annually since 1863 (1863)[2][3]
Location	Washington, D.C.
Country	United States
Total no. of members	2,382 members 484 foreign associates[1]
Website	nasonline.org/member-directory

NAS members and foreign associates

Three types of NAS membership exist:[4][5]

1. Voting members, who must hold citizenship of the United States
2. Nonvoting foreign associates,[10] who have citizenship outside the United States
3. Emeritus members, who are no longer active and have rescinded their voting rights

As of May 2018 there were 2,382 active members and 484 foreign associates,[11] of whom approximately 190 have received Nobel Prizes.[1] A full list of members can be found in the online members directory.[1] See the list of members of the National Academy of Sciences and Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences for examples.

Notable member firsts

Some notable member firsts and records include:

• Edward C. Pickering (1846–1919)[12] was the youngest scientist elected, only 26 years old at the time of his election in 1873[13][14]
• Florence R. Sabin (1871–1953)[15] was the first woman to be elected a member in 1924[13]
• David Blackwell (1919–2010)[16] was the first African American elected in 1965[13]
• Marcia McNutt was the first woman to serve as president of the NAS,[17] following her election as a member in 2005.[18]
• Ben Barres (1954–2017)[19] was the first transgender scientist elected in 2013[20][21]
• Frances Arnold was the first woman to be elected to all three National Academies in the United States – the National Academy of Engineering (NAE, 2000), the National Academy of Medicine (NAM, 2004) and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS, 2008)[22]
• Richard Feynman resigned his NAS membership because of what he perceived as the Academy's elitism and in-group favoritism.[23][24] Feynman outlines the reasons for his resignation in his published correspondence Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track.[23][24]

Member diversity

Critics have pointed to a lack of member diversity because of a selection bias for “old white men” who dominate membership of the Academy. Elite institutions such as the from Ivy League, MIT, Stanford, the University of California and Caltech also dominate membership,[25] thereby perpetuating the Matthew effect. Diversity of age, disability, race, religion, gender and sexual orientation is lower in NAS than in the general population.[9] For example, women in science are an underrepresented group in the Academy but the proportion of female members is slowly growing.[26][27][28]

• In 1989, the academy had just 57 female members and 1,516 male members (3% female in total)[29]
• In 2010, there were 14 newly elected women (19% new female inductees) from 72 new members[30]
• In 2011, there were only 9 women (12% new female inductees) from 72 newly elected members.[31][9][32]
• In 2012, the Academy elected 84 new members, with a record high of 26 women (30% new female inductees)[9]
• In 2019, 50 women out of 125 new members were female (40% of new female inductees), another record high[33][34] although the proportion of women in the academy as a whole is much lower than 40%[27]

Persons of color, African Americans and Hispanics are also underrepresented.[9][5] In 2019, the academy was considering expelling members for sexual harassment.[35][36][37][38]

Nomination and election of new members

New members and foreign associates have been elected annually since 1863.[2] Membership can not be applied for as only voting academicians can submit formal nominations for newly elected members, for preferential voting in an annual ballot of members every March.[4] Candidates for membership are considered by peer review and voted for again through several rounds of balloting[39] and a final annual ballot in April at the annual general meeting (AGM) of the academy with results announced shortly after, usually early May.[8][11] Each nomination includes a curriculum vitae (CV) with a 250 word summary of the nominee's scientific archievements, the basis for election and a list of no more than 12 of their most important papers published in scientific journals.[4] The publication limit of 12 aims to focus assessment on the quality of a nominee's work, rather than the quantity of publications.[4][5]

As of 2019, a maximum of 100 members may be elected annually. Non-citizens of the USA are elected as foreign associates, with a maximum of 25 elected annually. Both members and foreign associates are affiliated with one of six scientific disciplines:[4]

1. Physical science and mathematical sciences
2. Biological sciences
3. Engineering and applied sciences
4. Biomedical sciences
5. Behavioural sciences and social sciences
6. Applied Biological, agricultural science and environmental sciences

On election, members are invited to an annual awards ceremony.[40]

Member biographies

Since 1966, newly elected members of the National Academy of Sciences have been invited to contribute an inaugural year article (IYA) to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) which is accompanied by a brief biography of the author.[41] Biographies of deceased members are published in the Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (BMNAS), for example see David Arnett's biography of Alastair G. W. Cameron.[42]

Members gallery

A small sample of example members and their portraits is shown below, taken from the list of members of the National Academy of Sciences.

• 
  Nobel laureate Albert Einstein was elected a member in 1942.[43] The Albert Einstein Memorial stands outside the NAS building
• 
  Molecular biologist Angelika Amon was elected a member in 2015[44]
• 
  Nobel laureate Steven Chu was elected a member in 1993[45]
• 
  Chemist Jennifer Doudna was elected a member in 2002[46][47]
• 
  Statistician David Blackwell was the first African-American elected in 1965[13][16]
• 
  Ecologist Sandra Díaz was elected a foreign associate in 2009[48][49]
• 
  Physicist Stephen Hawking[50] was elected a foreign associate in 1992[51]
• 
  Nobel laureate Frances Arnold was the first woman to be elected to all three National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in the US: the NAE in 2000, the NAM in 2004 and the NAS in 2008.[52][22]
• 
  Neurobiologist Ben Barres was the first transgender scientist elected in 2013[20]
• 
  CERN director Fabiola Gianotti was elected a foreign associate in 2015[53]
• 
  Astronomer Edward Charles Pickering[12] was the youngest scientist elected, only 26 years old at the time of his election in 1873
• 
  Geophysicist Marcia McNutt was elected a member in 2005 and has served as the 22nd president of the NAS since 2016[18]
• 
  Nobel laureate Glenn T. Seaborg was elected a member in 1948[54]
• 
  Medical scientist Florence R. Sabin was the first woman to be elected in 1924[15]
• 
  Physicist Hans Bethe was elected a member in 1944[55]
• 
  Polymath Noam Chomsky was elected a member in 1972[56]
• 
  Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus was elected a member in 2004.[57]
• 
  Mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. was elected a member in 1996[58]

References

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