Few Women Elected to National Academy of Sciences

The National Academy of Sciences has elected 90 new members, and only nine are women -- the lowest number accepted into the nation's most prestigious scientific body since 2001.

Overall, however, women's membership is up from historical lows, and national Academy present Ralph Cicerone insists that this year's numbers are an aberration:

Of the numbers for women, "we're hopeful in the long term and disappointed in this year being down," said Mr. Ciceronatne, who became the academy's president in 2005 after serving as chancellor of the University of California at Irvine. The group would like to see "steady and smooth" increases in the number of women each year, he said, but because the academy elects a relatively small number of new members over all each year, gains among female members are not consistent year to year.

"You don't see steady numbers" of women elected every year, he said. "You'll see it in the long term."

As recently as 2000, only 6 percent of the academy's members were women. In 2005 women earned 39 percent of the doctorates in science and engineering fields. However, it can take two decades for scientists to build credentials outstanding enough to merit election to the academy, Mr. Cicerone said.

9 Women Are Elected to the National Academy of Sciences, a 6-Year Low [Chronicle of Higher Education]

Image: NIH

Note: The person in the picture is Florence Rena Sabin, the first woman elected to the NAS.