National Academy of Sciences announces new members

In recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research, six Harvard professors recently joined 66 other U.S. scientists and engineers to be elected members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The election, held this week during the academy’s 142nd annual meeting, brings the total number of active members to 2,013.

“This year’s new class represents outstanding accomplishment in a wide variety of disciplines,” noted Barbara Schaal, an NAS member since 1999 who was elected last year as the academy’s first female vice president.

The newly elected NAS members from Harvard include:

David Clapham, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Aldo R. Castaneda Professor of Cardiovascular Research. Professor Clapham’s laboratory studies signal transduction, primarily the control of ion channels in heart and brain. They study the molecules that control the entry and release of intracellular calcium, and the mechanisms of calcium control of cell function.

Peter T. Ellison, John Cowles Professor of Anthropology. Professor Ellison studies human physiology and life history evolution, particularly reproductive physiology and the regulation of reproductive effort, a field that has become known as reproductive ecology. His research group developed methods for noninvasive monitoring of reproductive hormones in the early 1980s and introduced these techniques into field investigations of human reproductive ecology around the globe.

Claudia Goldin, Henry Lee Professor of Economics. Professor Goldin’s research interests include the economic histories of education, income, inequality, immigration, technological change, and the interrelationships among them, particularly for the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries and beyond.

Eric J. Heller, professor of chemistry and physics. Professor Heller’s research group focuses on few body quantum mechanics, scattering theory, and quantum chaos. Recurrent but not universal themes are semiclassical approximations, classical nonlinear dynamics and time-dependent quantum mechanics.

Charles H. Langmuir, professor of geochemistry. Professor Langmuir is director of graduate studies in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. His research focuses on the solid earth geochemical cycle, petrology, volcanology, ocean ridges, convergent margins, ocean islands, and composition and evolution of the earth’s mantle.

Robert J. Sampson, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences. Professor Sampson is chairman of the Sociology Department. Professor Sampson’s research interests center on crime, deviance, and stigmatization; the life course; neighborhood effects; and the sociology of the modern city. Much of his work stems from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, for which he serves as scientific director.

Established in 1863 by a congressional act of incorporation, the NAS serves as an official adviser to the federal government in any matter of science or technology. For additional information about the academy and its members, visit http://www.nasonline.org.