National Academy of Sciences Elects 22 Women Among Its 84 New Members

Election to membership in the National Academy of Sciences is considered one of greatest honors for members of the scientific community. There are currently 2,179 active members of the academy.

Recently, the academy elected 84 new members to its ranks. Of the 84 new members, 22, or 26.2 percent, are women. A year ago, women were 31 percent of the new members.

(L to R) Top row: Eva Y. Andrei, Kristi S. Anseth, Xuemei Chen, Susan T. Fiske, Katherine H. Freeman, Naomi J. Halas, Sharon Hammes-Schiffer, Sarah E. Hobbie, Nancy Knowlton, Chryssa Kouveliotou, and Mitzi I. Kuroda. Bottom row: Beth Levine, Mary E. Lidstrom, Ruth S. Nussenzweig, Sarah P. Otto, Terry A. Plank, Karin M. Rabe, Beth A. Simmons, Joan E. Strassmann, Eva Tardos, Gina Turrigiano, and Wei Yang.

Here are brief biographies of the new women members:

Eva Y. Andrei is a professor of physics and astronomy at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. Currently her research is focused on the electronic properties of graphene. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Tel Aviv University and a Ph.D. in physics from Rutgers University.

Kristi S. Anseth is a Distinguished Professor in the department of chemical and biological engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Dr. Anseth is a graduate of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the University of Colorado. She has taught at the University of Colorado since 1996. Her research involves biomaterials and tissue engineering.

Xuemei Chen is a professor of botany and plant sciences at the University of California, Riverside. She is a graduate of Beijing University and holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Cornell University.

Susan T. Fiske is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology at Princeton University. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Radcliffe College and holds a Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University. She joined the faculty at Princeton in 2000 after teaching at the University of Massachusetts for 14 years.

Katherine H. Freeman is a professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Freeman is a graduate of Wellesley College. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in geology from Indiana University in Bloomington. She has been on the faculty at Penn State since 1991.

Naomi J. Halas is the Stanley C. Moore Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and director of the Laboratory for Nanophotonics at Rice University in Houston. She is a magna cum laude graduate of La Salle College. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in physics at Bryn Mawr College.

Sharon Hammes-Schiffer is a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois. She is a graduate of Princeton University and earned a Ph.D. at Stanford University. Before joining the faculty at the University of Illinois in 2012, Dr. Hammes-Schiffer taught at the University of Notre Dame and Pennsylvania State University.

Sarah E. Hobbie is a professor of ecology at the University of Minnesota. She has served on the faculty at Minnesota since 1998. She is a graduate of Carleton College and earned a Ph.D. degree in integrative biology at the University of California at Berkeley.

Nancy Knowlton holds the Sant Chair in Marine Science in the department of invertebrate zoology at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Dr. Knowlton started at Smith College but transferred to Harvard University where she graduate summa cum laude. Dr. Knowlton earned a Ph.D. in zoology at the University of California at Berkeley.

Chryssa Kouveliotou is the senior scientist for high energy astrophysics at NASA’s George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. A native of Greece, she is among the world’s leading authorities on gamma-ray bursts. She holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from the National University of Athens, Greece. She earned a master’s degree from the University of Sussex in England, and a Ph.D. from the Technical University of Munich in Germany.

Mitzi I. Kuroda is a professor of genetics and medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Kuroda is a graduate of Tulane University in New Orleans. She holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Beth Levine holds the Charles Cameron Sprague Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Science at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. She received her medical training at the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Science in New York.

Mary E. Lidstrom is vice provost for research and the Jungers Professor of Chemical Engineering and Microbiology at the University of Washington in Seattle. Professor Lidstrom is a graduate of Oregon State University and holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin.

Ruth S. Nussenzweig is the C.V. Starr Professor of Medical and Molecular Parasitology and Pathology at the New York University School of Medicine in New York City. Dr. Nussenzweig completed her medical training in 1953 at the University of Sao Paulo School of Medicine in Brazil. She earned a Ph.D. in parasitology from the same institution in 1968.

Sarah P. Otto is the director of the Biodiversity Research Centre, and holds the Canada Research Chair in the department of zoology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Her research focuses on population genetics and evolutionary biology. A MacArthur Fellow, she holds a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Terry A. Plank is a professor in the department of earth and environmental sciences at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in Palisades, New York. Dr. Plank is a graduate of Dartmouth College and holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Karin M. Rabe is a Distinguished Professor of Physics at Rutgers University. Before joining the faculty at Rutgers University in 2000, she taught at Yale University for seven years. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University and holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT.

Beth A. Simmons is the Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs and director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. Dr. Simmons is the author of Who Adjusts? Domestic Sources of Foreign Economic Policy During the Interwar Years, 1924-1939 (Princeton University Press, 1993) and Mobilizing for Human Rights: International Law in Domestic Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Joan E. Strassmann is a professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Strassmann is a graduate of the University of Michigan and earned a Ph.D. at the University of Texas. In 2011, she was elected president of the Animal Behavior Society.

Eva Tardos is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University in Ithaca, York. She earned a Ph.D. at Eötvös University in Budapest, Hungary. Her research focuses on algorithm design and algorithmic game theory.

Gina Turrigiano is a professor of biology at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Professor Turrigiano is a graduate of Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and earned a Ph.D. at the University of California at San Diego.

Wei Yang is senior investigator and section chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Yang is a graduate of Stony Brook University in New York. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Columbia University.