Election to the academy is a confidential process. Each year, a central nominating committee receives a ranked list of candidates from each of the academy's 25 sections. From these, a combined ballot is sent to members. Although from time to time selections have been criticized as "political" or based on favoritism, a comprehensive study of the membership surely would support a view of NAS as an organization essentially made up of the United States' scientific community's most notable "movers and shakers."
One way to assess the breadth and depth of a scientific investigator's impact is to examine the number of research papers he or she has published over a given number of years, along with the number of times other scientists have cited those papers. A 1981 study by Eugene Garfield, reported in Current Contents, covering the 14-year period 1965-78 revealed that 24 percent of the 1,000 most cited authors ...
