Berkeleyan

Awards

27 April 2006

National Academy of Sciences elects five from Berkeley

The National Academy of Sciences, which represents the nation's elite scientists and engineers and serves as official science adviser to the federal government, announced on April 25 the election of 72 new members and 18 foreign associates, including five Berkeley faculty members. Those elected this week bring the total number of active members to 2,013.

The newly elected Berkeley faculty members are Jillian Banfield, professor of earth and planetary science and of environmental science, policy, and management; Robert Lin, professor of physics and director of Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory; Michael Marletta, the Aldo DeBenedictis Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and professor of molecular and cell biology; David Patterson, professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences; and Dan-Virgil Voiculescu, professor of mathematics. Banfield and Marletta also are faculty scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Berkeley's total was second only to Harvard's six, surpassing Rockefeller University (4), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (3), and the California Institute of Technology (3). One-fifth of all new members are from the 10-campus University of California system, besting the entire Ivy League of private universities.

Berkeley now boasts 132 members of the academy, a 143-year-old private organization of scientists and engineers that advises the nation's leaders, upon request, in matters of science and technology.

Eleven faculty members named to AAAS

On April 24 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences announced the election of 175 new fellows, 11 of them from Berkeley.

The new fellows from Berkeley are Michael Botchan, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology; David Eisenbud, professor of mathematics; Stuart Jay Freedman, professor of physics; Tulio Haperin- Donghi, professor of history; Robert Lin, professor of physics and director of Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory; A. Richard Newton, dean of the College of Engineering; George Oster, professor of environmental science, policy, and management and of molecular and cell biology; David Patterson, professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences; David Romer, professor of economics; Richard Taruskin, professor of music; and Pravin Varaiya, professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences.

The academy will welcome this year's new class on Oct. 7 at its annual induction ceremony at its headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.