A Record Number of Women Elected to the National Academy of Sciences

The National Academy of Sciences recently announced the election of 100 new members and 25 foreign associates in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Forty percent of the newly elected members are women — the most ever elected in any one year to date. Thirty-eight of the 40 women elected to the Academy have current ties to the academic world. A year ago, there were 27 women among the 84 new members from the United States.

Those elected this year bring the total number of active members of the National Academy of Sciences to 2,347 and the total number of foreign associates to 487. Foreign associates are nonvoting members of the Academy, with citizenship outside the United States.

Here are brief biographies of the new women members with ties to academia:

(L to R) Susan L. Ackerman, Joanna Aizenberg, Susan C. Alberts, Rosina M. Bierbaum, Jue Chen, Gloria M. Coruzzi, Ana Maria Cuervo, and Janet Currie

Susan L. Ackerman holds the  Steven Kuffler Chair of Biology in the department of cell and molecular medicine at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Ackerman joined the faculty at the university in 2016. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Joanna Aizenberg is the Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials Science and professor of chemistry and chemical biology in the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. She earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a master’s degree in physical chemistry from Moscow State University in Russia. Professor Aizenberg holds a Ph.D. degree in structural biology from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.

Susan C. Alberts is the Robert F. Durden Professor of Biology in the departments of biology and evolutionary anthropology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Professor Alberts is a graduate of Reed College in Portland, Oregon. She earned a master’s degree at the University of California, Los Angeles and a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago.

Rosina M. Bierbaum holds the Roy F. Westin Chair in Natural Economics at the University of Maryland and is a professor of natural resources and environment policy at the University of Michigan. She is a graduate of Boston College, where she double majored in biology and English. She earned a Ph.D. in ecology and evolution from the State University of New York.

Jue Chen is the William E. Ford Professor at Rockefeller University in New York City. Professor Chen is a graduate of Ohio University, where she majored in chemistry. She holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Harvard University.

Gloria M. Coruzzi is the Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Biology in the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology at  New York University. She is a graduate of Fordham University in New York, where she majored in biology. Dr. Coruzzi earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology from New York University.

Ana Maria Cuervo is a professor of developmental and molecular biology, anatomy and structural biology, and medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in The Bronx, New York. A native of Barcelona, she earned a medical degree and a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Valencia in Spain.

Janet Currie is the Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Public Affairs and director of the Center for Health and Well-Being in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in New Jersey. She holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in economics from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University.

(L to R) Marilyn L. Fogel, Cynthia M. Friend, Lila M. Gierasch, Pinelopi K. Goldberg, Nancy B. Grimm, Maura E. Hagan, Paula T. Hammond, and Maria J. Harrison

Marilyn L. Fogel is the Wilbur W. Mayhew Endowed Professor of Geoecology in the department of earth sciences at the University of California, Riverside. Professor Fogel is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University, where she majored in biology. She earned a Ph.D. in botany and marine sciences from the University of Texas.

Cynthia M. Friend is the Theodore William Richards Professor of Chemistry, professor of materials sciences, and director of the Rowland Institute at Harvard University. Professor Friend is a graduate of the University of California, Davis, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Lila M. Gierasch is a distinguished professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology and department of chemistry at University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, and earned a Ph.D. at Harvard University.

Pinelopi K. Goldberg is the William K. Lanman Professor of Economics at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Dr. Goldberg is a graduate of the University of Freiburg in Germany. She earned a Ph.D. in economics at Stanford University.

Nancy B. Grimm is the Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Ecology and senior sustainability scientist in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. Dr. Grimm is a graduate of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in zoology from Arizona State University.

Maura E. Hagan is dean of the College of Science at Utah State University. Before coming to Utah State in 2015, Dr. Hagan was serving as interim director of National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. A graduate of Emmanuel College in Boston, Dr. Hagan earned a Ph.D. in physics at Boston College.

Paula T. Hammond is the David H. Koch (1962) Professor of Engineering and head of the department of chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and a Ph.D. from MIT. Dr. Hammond earned a master’s degree at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Maria J. Harrison holds the William H. Crocker Research Chair at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She has been on the faculty at Cornell since 2003. Dr. Harrison holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and applied molecular biology from the University of Manchester in England.

(L to R) Rebecca Heald, Sue Jinks-Robertson, Patricia J. Johnson, Karla A. Kirkegaard, Bryna Rebekah Kra, Michal Lipson, M. Cristina Marchetti, and Helen V. Milner

Rebecca Heald holds the Flora Lamson Hewlett Endowed Chair in Biochemistry and is a professor and head of the division of cell and developmental biology, molecular and cell biology department at the University of California, Berkeley. She has been on the Berkeley faculty since 1998. Dr. Heald earned a Ph.D. at Harvard Medical School.

Sue Jinks-Robertson is co-vice chair and director of the cell and molecular biology program at the Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina. She is a graduate of Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, and holds a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Patricia J. Johnson is a professor in the department of microbiology, immunology, and molecular genetics in David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. She holds a Ph.D. in biological sciences from the University of Michigan.

Karla A. Kirkegaard is the Violetta L. Horton Research Professor, a professor of genetics, and a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University in California.

Bryna Rebekah Kra is the Sarah Rebecca Roland Professor of Mathematics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Dr. Kra is a graduate of Harvard University and holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Michal Lipson is a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at Columbia University in New York City. She joined the faculty at Columbia in 2015. Professor Lipson holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in physics from Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.

M. Cristina Marchetti is a professor in the department of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Marchetti is a graduate of the University of Pavia in Italy. She earned a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Florida.

Helen V. Milner is the B.C. Forbes Professor of Politics and International Affairs and founding director of the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University in New Jersey. Professor Milner is a graduate of Stanford University, where she majored in international relations. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University.

(L to R) Dianne K. Newman, Janet B. Pierrehumbert, Aviv Regev, Kathryn Roeder, Pamela C. Ronald, Martine F. Roussel, Helen V. Milner, Karen E. Smith, and Linda Smith

Dianne K. Newman is a professor of biology and geobiology in the division of geological and planetary sciences at the California Institute of Technology. She joined the faculty at Caltech in 2000. Dr. Newman is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Janet B. Pierrehumbert is a senior research fellow at Trinity College and a professor of language modelling, at the University of Oxford in England. She joined the faculty at Oxford in 2015 after teaching at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Professor Pierrehumbert is a graduate of Harvard University, where she majored in linguistics. She earned a Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Aviv Regev is a professor in the department of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is chair of the faculty at The Broad Institute, a joint venture of MIT and Harvard University. Dr. Regev holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Tel Aviv.

Kathryn Roeder is a professor in the department of statistics and computational biology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. She joined the faculty at the university in 1994. Professor Roeder holds a Ph.D. in statistics from Pennsylvania State University.

Pamela C. Ronald is the director of grass genetics at the Joint BioEnergy Institute and a distinguished professor in the department of plant pathology of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Ronald is a graduate of Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where she majored in biology. She holds master’s degrees from Stanford University and Uppsala University in Sweden. Dr. Ronald earned a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley.

Martine F. Roussel holds an endowed chair in molecular oncogenesis in the tumor cell biology department at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. She also serves as a professor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. Professor Roussel earned a Ph.D. at the University of Lille in France.

Karen E. Smith is a professor of mathematics at the University of Michigan. Dr. Smith is a graduate of Princeton Uninversity in New Jersey, where she majored in mathematics. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan.

Linda Smith is a distinguished professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University in Bloomington. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

(L to R) Nancy A. Speck, Susan Strome, Sue VandeWoude, Cynthia Wolberger, Mariana F. Wolfner, and Marlene Zuk

Nancy A. Speck is an investigator at Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute and a professor in the department of cell and developmental biology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Professor Speck is a graduate of what in now McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland. She earned a Ph.D. at Northwestern University.

Susan Strome is a distinguished professor in the department of molecular, cell, and developmental biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Dr. Strome is a graduate of the University of New Mexico. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of Washington.

Sue VandeWoude is a professor at the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences of  Colorado State University in Fort Collins. She earned a doctor of veterinary medicine degree at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Cynthia Wolberger is a professor in the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. She joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins in 1991. Professor Wolberger is a graduate of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She earned a Ph.D. at Harvard University.

Mariana F. Wolfner is the Goldwin Smith Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics in the department of molecular biology and genetics at Cornell University. She is a graduate of Cornell University, where she double majored in biology and chemistry. Professor Wolfner earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Stanford University.

Marlene Zuk is a professor in the department of ecology, evolution, and behavior at the University of Minnesota. She joined the university’s faculty in 2012. Dr. Zuk holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Note: The two women elected to the National Academy of Sciences who are not affiliated with a university at this time are Jennifer T. Chayes of Microsoft Research and Elaine A. Ostrander of the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.