Industry Well Represented In Recent NAS Election

Sidebar: NAS's New Foreign Associates Sidebar: New NAS Members, 1997 This year's group of 60 newly elected members to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) includes five people from industry, the first time in several years that so many scientists and engineers from corporate America became new inductees. Even so, the actual percentage of members from United States corporations is still minuscule-less than 5 percent. The academy accepted only one or two people from companies in each of the past few elections. There's no explanation for the sudden attention paid to scientists and engineers from industry, according to Peter Raven, the NAS home secretary and director of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. The confidential selection process is supposed to be based solely on scientific achievements. But Raven points out, "we've always had one or two who work as fellows at an IBM, for instance." For Anthony J. DeMaria, election to NAS is gratifying and humbling. As chief executive of Bloomfield, Conn.-based DeMaria Electro-Optics Systems, he is one of the inductees who hail from industry. Unlike most NAS members, he spent his career in a corporate environment and greatly appreciates that his work has finally been recognized. "It's a great honor, especially for an engineer. I'm told there are only 80 engineers in the academy." DeMaria, a 20-year member of the National Academy of Engineering, is known for his research on short-laser pulses, which have applications in numerous areas, such as dentistry, remote sensing, and product marking. He started his company along with some colleagues from his former employer, Hartford, Conn.-based United Technologies Corp. (UTC). The group purchased their division from UTC three years ago and renamed it DeMaria Electro-Optics Systems. DeMaria is looking forward to taking on new activities as a NAS member. "I'd like to help on an advisory committee that contributes to public policy. This is a chance to get involved on the scientific side, since I've mostly been involved in such things as an engineer." Every year, NAS members select 60 U.S. scientists and engineers to be inducted into the academy on the basis of their "distinguished and continuing achievements in original research." Members nominate candidates, who then are considered by representatives of 25 sections that are grouped under six disciplinary classes, such as medical sciences, biological sciences, and physical sciences. Final acceptance is determined by a general election of academy members. With this year's roster of inductees, elected at the academy's annual meeting in April, NAS boasts 1,773 active members. It also added 15 foreign associates from 11 countries to its ranks (see list). These non-voting members have citizenships outside the U.S. The newly elected members will be formally inducted into the academy during next April's annual meeting. The new members represent 45 institutions, including universities, government institutes, and laboratories, as well as companies such as Wilmington, Del.-based DuPont Co. and Lucent Technologies Inc., based in Murray Hill, N.J. The institution that boasts the largest number of new members is the University of California, Berkeley, with five researchers elected. Stanford University and Yale University each contributed four faculty members. Not surprisingly, news of this year's selection prompted expressions of delight and humility from new members who were contacted by The Scientist. "This is a little bit like a stamp of approval," remarks Richard W. Tsien, George P. Smith Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford University and director of the Silvio Conte Center of Neuroscience Research. "I look forward to repaying the public in some small way by helping public policy." Comments Inder M. Verma, a professor of molecular biology in the Laboratory of Genetics at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences in La Jolla, Calif.: "I would hope that I will be able to participate in areas where at least my experience would be helpful to society." Many of the new academy members who were contacted view the honor as an opportunity-and an obligation-to help bolster science education, ethics, and funding. Although unclear about their upcoming NAS roles, they hope the academy can provide a useful platform for change. "An issue that's bothered me for a long time is misconduct in the sciences," notes S. Walter Englander. The Jacob-Gershon Cohen Professor of Medical Sciences in the department of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania is well known for his work in hydrogen exchange. "It's important for science to maintain a really high moral standard, but the profession hasn't set up a mechanism for handling misconduct and airing charges," he maintains. "It may be that the academy is the organization to do that." Equally earnest is Eric S. Lander, a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, director of the Whitehead/Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Genome Research, and a professor of biology at MIT. As Lander sees it, joining NAS is a chance to bring science closer to the masses. "Science is certainly no longer an ivory-towered, cloistered activity," he says. "Look at human genomics. It poses many scientific opportunities, but many social dilemmas, too. This is an opportunity to engage in very informal dialogue, but with a responsibility of educating the public." Adding his voice to the chorus is Robert Curl, the Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Natural Science in the department of chemistry at Rice University in Houston. Curl, who shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry last year, worries that funding is drying up. "I don't have a real agenda that comes with joining the NAS, but I'd like to make sure that basic research is funded," he says. "What will be the consequences of squeezing federal funds? It's a bad thing to target. It's like failing to plant seeds when you want to have harvest timber for the future." Similarly, Peter S. Kim, an associate investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a member of the Whitehead Institute, and a professor of biology at MIT, is concerned that the next generation of scientists won't have the resources to execute their ideas. "Funding for young investigators is crucial," comments Kim, who is 39 years old and a member of the National Institutes of Health AIDS Vaccine Research Committee. "It's still difficult for young people to get started and get their research off the ground." Joel E. Cohen can appreciate that, too. As a professor of populations at Rockefeller University and Columbia University, he's well aware just how difficult it can be for researchers to secure funding in a competitive environment. In a sense, it is a microcosmic example of the competition for shrinking resources in an increasingly crowded planet (J.E. Cohen, The Scientist, March 18, 1996, page 11). That is the topic of his most recent book, How Many People Can the Earth Support? (New York, W.W. Norton, 1995). While expressing gratitude for his election to the academy, Cohen puts it in a different perspective-the honor bestowed upon him is eclipsed by the accomplishments of his children. "It's a pleasing recognition by my colleagues," he says. "But you want to know what is important? My son, who's 17, recently won first prize in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search and my daughter-she's 20 and at Harvard-won a fellowship to study in Japan." Edward R. Silverman is a writer with the Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.

Industry Well Represented In Recent NAS Election

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