Three types of NAS membership exist: who have
citizenship outside the United States •
Emeritus members, who are no longer active and have rescinded their voting rights there were 2,382 active members and 484 international members, of whom approximately 190 have received
Nobel Prizes. was the youngest scientist elected, only 26 years old at the time of his election in 1873 •
Florence R. Sabin (1871–1953) was the first woman to be elected a member in 1924 •
David Blackwell (1919–2010) was the first African American elected in 1965 following her election as a member in 2005 •
Ben Barres (1954–2017) was the first
transgender scientist elected in 2013 •
Frances Arnold was the first woman to be elected to all three National Academies in the United States – the
National Academy of Engineering (NAE, 2000), the
National Academy of Medicine (NAM, 2004) and the
National Academy of Sciences (NAS, 2008) •
Richard Feynman resigned his NAS membership because of what he perceived as the Academy's
elitism and
in-group favoritism. Though arguably the most famous, Feynman was not alone.
Richard Lewontin also resigned for principled reasons (as opposed, say, to ill-health) in 1972, and Josiah Whitney was the first member to resign, in 1874.
Member diversity Critics have pointed to a lack of
member diversity because of a
selection bias for “old white men” who dominate membership of the Academy. Elite institutions such as the from
Ivy League,
MIT,
Stanford, the
University of California and
Caltech also dominate membership, thereby perpetuating the
Matthew effect. Diversity of age, disability, race, religion, gender and sexual orientation is lower in NAS than in the general population. • In 1989, the academy had just 57 female members and 1,516 male members (3% female in total) • In 2010, there were 14 newly elected women (19% new female inductees) from 72 new members • In 2011, there were only 9 women (12% new female inductees) from 72 newly elected members. • In 2012, the Academy elected 84 new members, with a record high of 26 women (30% new female inductees) • In 2019, 50 women out of 125 new members were female (40% of new female inductees), another record high although the proportion of women in the academy as a whole is much lower than 40%
Persons of color are also underrepresented. == Nomination and election of new members ==