Faculty members elected to National Academy of Sciences

Four University faculty members were elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the University announced last Tuesday. The Academy is often considered the nation’s most prominent elected body of scientists, and The New York Times has described the distinction of being elected as “an honor considered second only to a Nobel Prize.”

Mathematics professor David Gabai GS ’80, sociology professor Sara McLanahan, electrical engineering senior research scholar Loren Pfeiffer and electrical engineering professor Vincent Poor GS ’77 were among the 72 new members and 18 foreign associates selected this year. Poor has also served as dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science since 2006.

“That four University faculty members were elected just reinforces the stature of the University as a research institution in addition to being a fine teaching institution in the eyes of the public and the greater scientific community,” Poor said.

Poor’s research in statistical signal processing and stochastic analysis has been applied, most notably, to wireless networks. He attributed much of his success to entering the right field at the right time.

“It’s just one of those technologies that really took the world by storm,” Poor said of his research. “I think what’s been gratifying to me is that the societal impact has been tremendous. It’s a field that is very, very visible.” Poor was also elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2001.

McLanahan, whose recent research focuses on fragile families and child well-being, is the only female professor from the University elected this year. Eleven women in total were elected from accross the United States.

“It’s a small group of women, so being part of that group is very special to me,” McLanahan said. “Even more important, though, is being part of this very august and respected body of scientists.”

McLanahan is also the founding director of the Wilson School and the Office of Population Research’s Bendheim-Thoman Center for Research on Child Wellbeing and the editor-in-chief of The Future of Children, a research journal whose editors include Wilson School Dean Christian Paxson and Wilson School professor Cecilia Rouse.

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McLanahan added that, as NAS candidates can only be formally nominated by current members, she was also honored to be recognized for her professional work by her academic colleagues.

“As researchers and social scientists, we’re trained to be critical; so to have your colleagues pat you on the back is very nice,” she said.

Pfeiffer, who has worked on ultra-clean techniques in gallium arsenide fabrication, produced a material that has facilitated discoveries in condensed matter physics over the past two decades.

“I find it meaningful because people can discover new physics behind it,” Pfeiffer said of his research. “It’s an enabler.” Materials science has applications in everyday life that many people are not aware of, he added, citing as an example the critical role of metallurgy in increasing the efficiency of car and plane engines.

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“We are defined by our materials,” he said, referring to periods from the Stone Age to the Silicon Age.

Pfeiffer, who is also a fellow of the American Physical Society, joined the University’s electrical engineering department after working at Lucent’s Bell Labs for over 40 years.

Gabai’s research has focused on low-dimensional topology and hyperbolic geometry. Over the past three decades, his work on the topology of 3-manifolds has produced influential results.

“This is really just a terrific honor,” Gabai said. “The National Academy of Sciences is a great organization, and I’m happy to have been elected a member.”

In 2004, Gabai was also the sole recipient of the Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry, a prestigious distinction conferred once every three years by the American Mathematical Society for noteworthy research in geometry or topology.

Nearly 200 of the association’s 2,113 active members have won Nobel Prizes, according to the NAS website. Seventy-four other University faculty members, including University President Shirley Tilghman, are current members of the NAS.

This year’s members also included five members of the Harvard College faculty as well as one each from Harvard Medical School, Yale and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.