Member of the National Academy of Sciences
Membership in the National Academy of Sciences rests on one formal criterion: 'distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.' Among the academy's active and international members, approximately 190 have also received Nobel Prizes. That overlap of two of science's highest honors in a single institution raises immediate questions. How does a scientist get through the door? Who has historically been kept out? And why have some of the most celebrated scientists in history chosen to walk back through that door and resign?
New members have been elected annually since 1863, but no scientist can enter the academy by self-nomination. Only current voting members may submit formal nominations.
Each nomination packet centers on a curriculum vitae, alongside a 250-word account of what the nominee has accomplished in original research. Nominees must also provide a list of no more than 12 of their most significant published papers. That ceiling on publications is deliberate: the academy wants reviewers measuring the quality of research rather than counting its volume.
Nominations pass through peer review and multiple rounds of member balloting in March. The final vote takes place in April at the annual general meeting, with results typically announced in early May.
Three membership categories exist: voting members, nonvoting international members, and emeritus members. Voting members must hold United States citizenship. Emeritus members have retired and given up their voting rights. Up to 120 new voting members and 30 international members may be elected in any single year. All members are placed within one of six scientific disciplines, running from physical and mathematical sciences to applied biological, agricultural, and environmental sciences.
Edward Pickering earned his membership at just 26 years old, elected in 1873, making him the youngest scientist the academy has ever chosen.
In 1924, Florence R. Sabin became the first woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences. David Blackwell followed in 1965, becoming the first African American to join the membership. Ben Barres, who was born in 1954 and died in 2017, was elected in 2013 as the first transgender scientist to reach that distinction.
Frances Arnold achieved something no woman had done before: election to all three United States National Academies. The National Academy of Engineering admitted her in 2000. The National Academy of Medicine followed in 2004, and the National Academy of Sciences elected her in 2008.
Marcia McNutt, elected as a member in 2005, later became the first woman to serve as president of the NAS. The first member ever to resign from the academy was Josiah Whitney, who stepped away in 1874.
Richard Feynman resigned his NAS membership on grounds he described as the academy's elitism and in-group favoritism. He recorded those objections in his published correspondence, Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track.
Richard Lewontin also resigned on principled grounds in 1972. Feynman was arguably the most famous of those who left in protest, but Lewontin's departure showed that the discontent ran deeper than one individual's frustration. The academy's critics gave that pattern a name: a selection bias for 'old white men.'
In 1989, the academy counted just 57 female members against 1,516 male members, leaving women at 3 percent of the total. That ratio shifted slowly and unevenly over the decades that followed.
In 2010-14 women joined from a cohort of 72 newly elected members, representing 19 percent of that year's intake. In 2011, only 9 women were elected from a cohort of the same size, dropping the share to 12 percent. The year 2012 brought a record: 26 of 84 new members were women, reaching 30 percent. By 2019-50 women from a class of 125 were female inductees, hitting 40 percent of new members for that year. The proportion of women across the full membership remains far lower than that annual high, because correcting a long historical imbalance takes more than one strong election cycle.
MIT, Stanford, Caltech, and the University of California are among the institutions critics say dominate the academy's membership, alongside the Ivy League. That clustering, they argue, perpetuates the Matthew effect, the pattern by which recognition tends to accumulate among those who already hold it. Persons of color remain underrepresented across the membership as well.
The academy's membership trails the general population on measures of age, disability, race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. The biographical archives capture each member's individual story, and together they begin to show how slowly the broader pattern shifts.
Since 1966, newly elected members have been invited to contribute what the academy calls an inaugural year article. These articles are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, each one accompanied by a brief biography of the author.
The Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, known as BMNAS, exists for members who have died. It preserves extended biographies of those whose careers the academy wants to keep on permanent record. David Arnett's biography of Alastair G. W. Cameron is one example the academy has cited as representative of what the archive contains. That memoir stands as a single entry in a record that grows by dozens of names every spring.
Common questions
What is membership in the National Academy of Sciences?
Membership in the National Academy of Sciences is an honor awarded to scientists judged to have made distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Among the academy's active and international members, approximately 190 have also received Nobel Prizes.
Who was the first woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences?
Florence R. Sabin was the first woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences, in 1924. Women represented 40 percent of new inductees in 2019, though their share of the full membership remains much lower.
Who was the first African American elected to the National Academy of Sciences?
David Blackwell, who lived from 1919 to 2010, was the first African American elected to the National Academy of Sciences, in 1965.
How are new members of the National Academy of Sciences nominated and elected?
New National Academy of Sciences members are nominated exclusively by current voting members; no scientist can apply independently. Candidates pass through peer review and multiple rounds of balloting in March, with a final vote in April at the annual general meeting and results announced in early May. Up to 120 new voting members and 30 international members may be elected per year.
Why did Richard Feynman resign from the National Academy of Sciences?
Richard Feynman resigned from the National Academy of Sciences because he objected to what he perceived as the academy's elitism and in-group favoritism. He recorded his reasons in his published correspondence, Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track.
What are the three types of National Academy of Sciences membership?
The National Academy of Sciences has three membership types: voting members, who must hold United States citizenship; nonvoting international members from other countries; and emeritus members, who have retired and given up their voting rights.
All sources
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