Four MIT faculty elected to the National Academy of Sciences
Four MIT faculty elected to the National Academy of Sciences
Four MIT professors are among the 84 members newly elected to the National Academy of Sciences this year, according to an MIT News Office press release. The new members, announced Tuesday, are economics professor Daron Acemoglu, brain and cognitive sciences professor Emery Brown, biology professor Alan Grossman, and Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences professor Timothy Grove.
Including these new members, MIT now claims 77 MIT faculty members who have been elected to NAS.
According to the NAS’s announcement, new members are elected “in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.” There are now a total of 2,214 active NAS members.
Daron Acemoglu is the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics. His research centers on economic development, political economy and economic growth theory. Acemoglu is a co-author of Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, an investigation of the underlying causes of state economic success and failure. According to the MIT News Office, Acemoglu was awarded the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in 2012 for his contributions to understanding political institutions, technical change and economic growth.
Professor Emery Brown, the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical engineering, holds joint posts at MIT, Harvard Medical School, and Massachusetts General Hospital as an anesthesiologist-statistician. His work focuses on developing neural signal processing algorithms for data analysis in neuroscience. He has also researched the neurological basis of general anesthesia. According to MIT’s press release, Brown is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and a recipient of the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award in 2007.
Alan Grossman, the associate head of the Department of Biology, employs a wide range of biological approaches to study how Bascillus subtilis, a bacterium, recognize and respond to internal and external stimuli. Grosssman’s research has focused on how these bacteria engage in cell-cell signaling, integrate physiological signals, control transcription and regulate DNA replication, according to MIT. Grossman has served as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2008.
Timothy Grove is the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences. His work focuses on planetary evolution, from the chemical differentiation of the Earth’s crust and mantle to the formation of the core of the Moon and Mars. He served as the president of the American Geophysical Union from 2008 to 2010 and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, according to MIT.
The NAS also announced Tuesday the election of 21 foreign associates from 15 countries, who are non-voting members with non-U.S. citizenship.
—Will Conway
and Austin Hess