Our NAS Members Total 112;
Second Most in the U.S.

Berkeley has more members in the National Academy of Sciences than any other campus in the country except for Harvard University, according to the most recent membership roster.

With 112 members listed in the 1997 NAS membership directory, Berkeley is one of seven campuses of the nine campus UC system that have made the top 30 schools in membership.

"This is a remarkable record, unmatched by any other system," said UC President Richard Atkinson in a recent letter to the UC Board of Regents.

Harvard holds first place with 157 members, the nation's premier organization of scientists and engineers. Stanford is third with 108.

Other UC campuses in the top 30, and numbers of members each, are:

Although the NAS acts as official adviser to the federal government, it is a private organization, established in 1863 by Congress in an act of incorporation signed by Abraham Lincoln.

Members are chosen on the basis of their contributions to the use of science for the general welfare.

Six members were elected in 1997 from Berkeley.

James P. Allison, professor of immunology, directs the Cancer Research Laboratory, where his team has made headway in breaking through the protective barriers that cancer cells erect against attack by lymphocytes (white blood cells) in the body.

In research published last year, Allison demonstrated in mice that he and his colleagues could disable a mechanism in the immune system that inhibits T-cell action against the cancer. Nearly all the mice treated by Allison rejected tumors they already had and fought off new ones, raising hopes that this approach may be successful in treating metastases-tumor cells that spread throughout the body.

Daniel S. Chemla, professor of physics here and director of the materials sciences division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is recognized as one of the world's foremost authorities on the optical and electronic properties of materials.

Originally a particle physicist, Chemla switched to what he once called a more "human scale" of science-the interaction of laser radiation with matter. He went on to specialize in the study of quantum effects on "ultra-small material structures"-solids so small their physical properties become size- and shape-dependent.

Kenneth N. Raymond, professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry, also affiliated with LBL, has focused on methods for removing plutonium and other poisonous ions from the human body. He has designed chemical "waste disposal" compounds that bind tightly with plutonium so that the dangerous element can be passed through the kidneys and excreted out of the body.

Modeled after the compound manufactured by bacteria and other micro-organisms to transport iron, Raymond's synthetic agents could also prove valuable for removing radioactive waste from the environment.

Kirk Smith, professor of public health, has done seminal work in the environmental sciences illuminating the relationship between energy, environment and economy in developing nations, by measuring emissions from such humble devices as the cowdung used in African cooking stoves.

Smith has linked indoor pollution in Africa and India with health hazards, including early childhood pneumonia. He has translated these results, including work on global warming, into concrete policies at the national and international level.

Also elected to the NAS in 1997 were Paul Kay, emeritus professor of linguistics, whose research has focused on color categorization in thought and language; and Grigory I. Barenblatt, visiting professor from Russia in the Department of Mathematics.

   


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