2025 NAS Annual Meeting
Program

As of April 17, 2025 (subject to change)

PDF version of Program

Virtual program (Section Meetings)
Monday, April 14-Friday, April 18

In-person program:
Friday, April 25
Saturday, April 26
Sunday, April 27

Virtual program (Class Meetings and Business Session):
Tuesday, April 29

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Section Meetings from Monday, April 14 through Friday, April 18 (virtual program, members only)

Monday, April 14 Section Meetings

11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Eastern | 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Pacific
Section 21: Biochemistry
Section 51: Anthropology

3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Eastern | 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Pacific
Section 24: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience (joint with Section 28)
Section 28: Systems Neuroscience (joint with Section 24)
Section 63: Environmental Sciences and Ecology

Tuesday, April 15 Section Meetings

11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Eastern | 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Pacific
Section 16: Geophysics
Section 33: Applied Physical Sciences

3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Eastern | 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Pacific
Section 12: Astronomy
Section 22: Cellular and Developmental Biology
Section 32: Applied Mathematical Sciences

Wednesday, April 16 Section Meetings

11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Eastern | 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Pacific
Section 15: Geology
Section 23: Physiology and Pharmacology
Section 31: Engineering Sciences
Section 52: Psychological and Cognitive Sciences

3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Eastern | 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Pacific
Section 25: Plant Biology
Section 26: Genetics
Section 42: Medical Physiology and Metabolism
Section 61: Animal, Nutritional, and Applied Microbial Sciences

Thursday, April 17 Section Meetings

11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Eastern | 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Pacific
Section 14: Chemistry
Section 41: Medical Genetics, Hematology, and Oncology
Section 64: Human Environmental Sciences

3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Eastern | 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Pacific
Section 11: Mathematics
Section 53: Social and Political Sciences
Section 62: Plant, Soil, and Microbial Sciences

Friday, April 18 Section Meetings

11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Eastern | 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Pacific
Section 13: Physics
Section 34: Computer and Information Sciences
Section 44: Microbial Biology
Section 54: Economic Sciences

3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Eastern | 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Pacific
Section 27: Evolutionary Biology
Section 29: Biophysics and Computational Biology
Section 43: Immunology and Inflammation

Friday, April 25 (in-person program)

Unless noted otherwise, all sessions and events will take place at the National Academy of Sciences Building, located at 2101 Constitution Avenue, NW.

Transportation: The Annual Meeting shuttle will be available from the Fairmont Washington Hotel, by the Juniper Restaurant entrance, located at 2401 M Street, NW. Transportation between the hotel and the NAS Building will be provided throughout the meeting.

10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
New Members' Orientation and Expo (new members only)
For members and international members elected in 2024

• 10:00 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. – Plenary Session
• 10:45 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. – Expo

Learn more about the Academy’s mission, membership activities, studies, programs, and special initiatives in a lively and interactive session. During the program expo you will have the opportunity to meet the Academy leadership and staff, and learn more about how to become involved in activities of interest to you.

12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.
New Members' Orientation Lunch (new members only)

2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
PNAS Editorial Board Meeting (Fairmont Washington Hotel, Board members only)

5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Council Reception in Honor of Members Elected in 2024 (by invitation)
A special buffet reception hosted by the Academy's Council in honor of members elected in 2024 will be held prior to the Induction Ceremony.

7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Presentation Ceremony for Members Elected in 2024
Members and international members elected in 2024 will be introduced to their colleagues in the Academy and sign the “Registry of Membership.” The ceremony will be livestreamed on www.nasonline.org.

8:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Celebratory Reception for Members Elected in 2024 and Ceremony Guests
Join our newest members for a wine and cheese reception in celebration of their induction into the National Academy of Sciences.

Saturday, April 26 (in-person program)

7:30 a.m. to 8:45 a.m.
Breakfast

• Members and Guests
• Estate Planning (begins at 7:45 a.m.)

9:00 a.m. to 9:45 a.m.
President’s Address
NAS President Marcia McNutt will open the meeting with her annual address to members. The address will be livestreamed on www.nasonline.org.

10:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.
Symposium
Needed: A Dramatic Expansion in Electric Power Transmission Capacity
To decarbonize the energy system, while assuring that electric power remains resilient, we must break the logjam that makes it difficult, often impossible, to build new lines to move clean power from locations where it is produced (remote solar, hydro and terrestrial and offshore wind) to the locations where it is needed. Distributed generation and end-use efficiency can help, but the US Department of Energy has argued that if the economy is going to stay strong, and the nation is going to make serious progress in reducing CO2 emissions, by 2050 the US will need to more than double high-voltage transmission capacity. That will not be possible if all we do is try to build new transmission lines under business as usual. As the experts in this session will explain, success will require the use of new technology, non-traditional rights-of-way, improved public understanding, and more than incremental changes in regulation, law, and public policy.
Organizer: M. Granger Morgan, Hamerschlag University Professor of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
Speakers:
Larry Bekkedahl, Senior Vice President, Strategy & Advanced Energy Delivery, Portland General Electric
Wändi Bruine de Bruin, Provost Professor of Public Policy, Psychology, and Behavioral Science, and Director, Schaeffer Institute's Behavioral Science and Policy Initiative, University of Southern California
Duncan Callaway, Professor and Chair, Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley
Liza B. Reed, Director of Climate, Niskanen Center
Susan F. Tierney, Senior Advisor, Analysis Group, Inc.
David G. Victor, Professor of Innovation and Public Policy, and Director, Deep Decarbonization Initiative, School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California, San Diego

The symposium will be livestreamed on www.nasonline.org.

12:30 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.
Lunch

• Members and Guests
• Elkan Blout Society (by invitation)
• Breaking Barriers Session: Dava Sobel on The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science
  Marie Curie, the most celebrated woman scientist of all time, was never the only woman scientist. In The Elements of Marie Curie, New York Times bestselling author Dava Sobel reveals the discoverer of radium and two-time Nobel Prize winner as a mentor to at least 45 aspiring female physicists and chemists who found their way to her Paris laboratory. “There’s enough detail,” Michelle Francl said of the book in her review for Nature, “to permit chemists and physicists to peer over Curie’s shoulder in the lab, as she painstakingly undertakes the fractional crystallization of radium chloride or seals a glass tube to create a radioactive standard.” Sobel, who is also the author of Longitude, Galileo’s Daughter, The Planets, A More Perfect Heaven, and The Glass Universe, admits she has only recently become sensitized to the issues confronting women in science. Her talk will introduce several of Mme. Curie’s talented protegees, place Mme. Curie herself among her peers in 20th-century science, and explore the influence the Polish-born Marie Sklodowska Curie continues to wield as a role model. A book signing event will follow the talk, and a copy of The Elements of Marie Curie will be provided to members and guests who attend.

2:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Research Briefings by Members Elected in 2024
The briefings will be livestreamed on www.nasonline.org.

• Class VI: Flaminia Catteruccia (61), Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
  What’s the Buzz About Malaria: Novel Solutions for Blocking Transmission of an Ancient Pathogen
  Malaria is a parasitic disease transmitted by mosquitoes that has scourged humanity over our evolutionary history. To this day, malaria still afflicts large parts of our planet, killing hundreds of thousands every year, mostly children in sub-Saharan Africa. Catteruccia investigates the biological, physiological and ecological components that shape how the malaria mosquito interacts with the malaria parasite, ensuring disease transmission. She also discusses novel approaches to block the malaria cycle that promise to aid efforts to reduce the burden of this devastating disease.
• Class V: Cecilia E. Rouse (54), The Brookings Institution
  Improving Access and Completion:  Elusive Goals in American Higher Education
  The net positive economic benefits of higher education are one of the few results on which economists and policymakers can (generally) agree. As a result, there has long been interest in increasing access, and more recently completion, to improve economic mobility and provide an important boost to the U.S. economy. Rouse documents the evolution of this focus in education policy as well as interventions that have been attempted to improve one or both, such as learning communities, financial aid based on student performance, and simplification of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). She also discusses the increasing concern about the cost of college and the associated levels of student debt as well as policies, such as income-based repayment, to help alleviate some of the burden on students. Despite some documented successes, substantially improving access, and particularly completion, has proven somewhat elusive in the U.S.
• Class IV: K. Heran Darwin (44), New York University Grossman School of Medicine
  What has Evolution Taught Us About Immunity to Infection?
  Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a human-exclusive pathogen that has been a leading cause of death due to an infectious disease over millennia. Understanding how we fight infections and how bacteria resist host defenses is our best chance at finding better cures. Our studies of a fundamental bacterial process may have revealed a remarkable way humans counter microbial invasion, and how this response has shaped human evolution.
• Class III: Steven Strogatz (33), Cornell University
  Getting in Sync: The Math and Science of Synchronization
  Every night along the tidal rivers of Malaysia, thousands of fireflies gather in mangrove trees and flash in unison, creating a dazzling display that extends for miles. Similar feats of spontaneous synchronization are seen in our own bodies, and even among inanimate objects, from the firing of neurons to the ticking of metronomes. Strogatz will discuss how mathematicians are uncovering the principles behind these phenomena, shedding light on the mechanisms that allow individual elements to sync without external cues.
• Class II: Nipam H. Patel (22), Marine Biological Laboratory
  The Physics and Development of Beauty: Structural Colors in Butterflies
  Butterflies are well known for the beautiful colors and patterns that decorate their wings.  Many of the colors are created by pigments within the scales of the wing, but other colors, especially blues and greens, are instead produced by a remarkable phenomenon known as structural coloration.  While the physical basis of structural color is well understood, we know very little about how animals and plants create the nanostructures required to create the optical effect.  Patel will discuss developmental, genetic, and cellular insights into how scale cells generate the necessary materials and geometry to create these colors.
• Class I: Maura A. McLaughlin (12), West Virginia University
  Detecting Gravitational Waves with a Galaxy-Size Observatory
  Pulsars are neutron stars formed in the supernova explosions of massive, evolved stars. These exotic objects weigh more than the Sun and can spin over 700 times per second. They possess extremely high magnetic fields, which make them energetic sources of radio waves beamed along their magnetic axes. We detect a pulse of radio emission during each pulsar rotation, and these pulses can be timed with remarkable precision using large radio telescopes, allowing us to detect even minute perturbations in their expected arrival times. We observe a network of these cosmic clocks distributed throughout the Galaxy to search for invisible ripples in spacetime known as gravitational waves. I will describe how we used this pulsar timing array to discover the first evidence for a stochastic background of gravitational waves, most likely generated by the pairs of extremely massive black holes at the cores of distant galaxy mergers.
  

7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.
President’s Dinner – Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery
The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery tells the story of America through the individuals who have shaped U.S. culture. Its collections celebrate leaders such as George Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr., artists such as Mary Cassatt and George Gershwin, activists such as Rosa Parks, and icons of pop culture such as Babe Ruth. This black-tie optional dinner dance will begin with a reception at 7:00 p.m.

The President’s Dinner at the National Portrait Gallery is currently sold out.

Sunday, April 27 (in-person program)

Sessions at the Fairmont Washington

7:00 a.m. to 8:15 a.m.
Breakfast

• Members and Guests
• Home Secretary Briefing for Class Officers and Section Chairs (by invitation)
• International Secretary with International Members (by invitation)

8:30 a.m. to 10:15 a.m.
Class/Section Meetings (members only)
Members will meet by NAS Class. Some Classes may include time to meet in Section groups, depending on how the Class Officers have arranged the agenda.

10:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
Plenary Session on U.S. Policy Changes: Effects on the NAS and Science
NAS President Marcia McNutt, NRC Chief Program Officer and NAS Chief Operating Officer Greg Symmes, and NAS Chief Financial Officer Ebun Johnson will present a brief overview of the short- and long-terms effects of Executive Orders and other government policies on the activities and finances of the NAS and NRC, followed by an opportunity for members to ask clarifying questions before participating in one of the three breakout sessions below.

11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.
Breakout Sessions

• Communicating through Crisis and Beyond
  David May, Chief Communications Officer, and Bill Kearney, Executive Director of the Academies' Office of News and Public Information, will lead a discussion of how the NAS can work with members, volunteers, staff, and our broader communities to communicate the benefits of science and the role of the NAS during a time of challenge and change.
• Funding Our Future: Identifying Opportunities Beyond the Horizon
  Alison Purvis, Chief Development Officer, and Andrew Ho, NAS Director of Development, will lead a discussion on diversifying and increasing NAS support from individuals, foundations, and corporations.
• Talking to Policymakers
  Chris King, Executive Director of the Office of Congressional and Government Affairs, will lead a discussion on communicating with elected officials—whom to talk to, how to reach out, and what to address during meetings.

12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Lunch

• Members and Guests
• Committee on Human Rights -- CHR Chair Martin Chalfie will lead a briefing on the Committee’s work to support researchers under threat and its efforts to raise awareness of challenges at the intersection of science and human rights.

2:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Bus Transportation to the NAS Building

Sessions at the NAS Building

12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.   
Awards Luncheon (by invitation)

2:30 p.m. to 3:45 p.m.   
Awards Ceremony
This ceremony will highlight the contributions made by award recipients in the physical, biological, and social sciences. The ceremony will be livestreamed on www.nasonline.org.

4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.   
Garden Party
As the final event of the in-person meeting, the Garden Party is traditionally the capstone event for members and their guests.

Tuesday, April 29 (virtual program)

11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. EDT | 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. PDT
Class Meetings (members only)
Six concurrent business meetings will be held, one for each Academy Class.

1:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. EDT | 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. PDT
Business Session (members only)
The annual business meeting agenda will include the election of members and international members, a report from President Marcia McNutt, reports from the Academy Classes, and consideration of proposed bylaw amendments.Fe