News from the National Academy of Sciences

February 16, 2016

Marcia McNutt Elected 22nd NAS President; New Treasurer, Council Members Chosen

WASHINGTON -- Members of the National Academy of Sciences have elected Marcia K. McNutt, editor-in-chief of the Science family of journals, as president of the Academy. William H. Press, Warren J. and Viola M. Raymer Professor, departments of computer science and integrative biology at The University of Texas at Austin was elected treasurer, and four new members were elected to the Academy’s governing Council: Susan G. Amara, Scientific Director, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Mental Health; Fred H. Gage, Vi and John Adler Professor, Laboratory of Genetics, Salk Institute for Biological Studies; Evelyn L. Hu, Tarr-Coyne Professor of Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering, John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University; and Laura L. Kiessling, Steenbock Professor of Chemistry and Laurens Anderson Professor of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison. The terms of all those elected begin July 1. McNutt will serve a six-year term. The treasurer will serve four years, and the new councilors three years.

A geophysicist, McNutt earned her bachelor’s degree in physics at Colorado College and her Ph.D. in earth sciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. Her research concentration is in marine geophysics, where she has used a variety of remote sensing techniques from ships and space to probe the dynamics of the mantle and overlying plates far from plate boundaries on geologic time scales. She is the author or co-author of more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and has made important contributions to the understanding of the rheology and strength of the lithosphere. She has demonstrated that a deep-seated, large-scale mantle thermal anomaly has been very persistent. It is not only producing midplate volcanoes in the island chains above its location deep beneath the central Pacific but also has produced older volcanic chains now submerged in the northwest Pacific that erupted as the Pacific plate drifted over the central Pacific over the last 100 million years.

McNutt began her faculty career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she became the Griswold Professor of Geophysics and served as director of the Joint Program in Oceanography and Applied Ocean Science and Engineering sponsored by MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She later served as president and chief executive officer of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and as professor of geophysics at Stanford University. From 2009 to 2013 she was the director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), one of the federal government’s major science agencies. While at the USGS, she helped lead the response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, for which she was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal by the U.S. Coast Guard. She also oversaw completion of the ground station for Landsat 8, which was launched in February 2013 and continues Landsat’s 40-year record of satellite imaging of natural and human-induced changes on the global landscape. McNutt became the 19th editor-in-chief of Science in 2013. As editor-in-chief she led the effort to establish Science Advances, an open access, online-only offspring of Science. The world’s largest society of earth scientists, the American Geophysical Union (AGU), awarded her the Macelwane Medal in 1988 for research accomplishments by a young scientist and the Maurice Ewing Medal in 2007 for her significant contributions to deep-sea exploration.

McNutt is a fellow of the AGU, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Geological Society of America, and the International Association of Geodesy. She served as president of the AGU from 2000 to 2002. Her honors include election to the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

McNutt was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2005 and has served on more than 30 committees and boards of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Most recently, she chaired an expert panel that evaluated options for slowing or offsetting global climate change. She is currently a member of the advisory committee for the Division on Earth and Life Studies and the Forum on Open Science.

McNutt succeeds Ralph J. Cicerone, who is completing his second term as president, the maximum allowed by the Academy's bylaws. "The Academy will be in good hands for years to come," said Ralph Cicerone. "Marcia McNutt is an energetic, thoughtful, and respected leader. She will be a strong advocate for the advancement of science and for its application for public benefit."

The National Academy of Sciences was established in 1863 by an act of Congress, signed by President Lincoln, as a private, nongovernmental institution to advise the nation on issues related to science and technology. Members and foreign associates of the Academy are elected by their peers for outstanding contributions to research. The membership includes approximately 2,300 members and 450 foreign associates, of whom more than 190 have won Nobel Prizes. The National Academy of Sciences works with the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine to provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation and conduct other activities to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions. The Academies also encourage education and research, recognize outstanding contributions to knowledge, and increase public understanding in matters of science, engineering, and medicine.

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