Only 9 Women Are Elected to the National Academy of Sciences

The National Academy of Sciences has added 90 new scientists to its ranks — 72 members and 18 foreign associates — but only nine are women, writes Jeffrey Brainard in a recent Chronicle article. That’s about half the number of women elected in 2005 — when there were a record 19 — and the lowest number accepted into the nation’s most elite scientific organization in six years, he notes.

Nevertheless, the proportion of women members is at a record high of 10 percent. Ralph J. Cicerone, NAS president, told Brainard he was optimistic that the number of women inducted into the academy would grow as more women chose scientific careers and worked their way up the ranks. “You don’t see steady numbers” of women elected every year, Cicerone said. “You’ll see it in the long term.”