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,...

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