The National Academy of Sciences announced Tuesday that it had elected 19 women, the highest number ever, among its 72 new members.
The academy, a self-perpetuating body chartered by Congress to advise the government on science and technology issues, is generally regarded as the nation’s most eminent organization of scientists.
Until recently, women rarely made up more than about 10 percent of new members elected each year. That number rose to 24 percent, or 17 of 72, in both 2003 and 2004.
Among those elected was Linda Cordell, director of the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History.
John Brauman, a chemistry professor at Stanford who oversees the academy’s election process, said the increase resulted primarily from “changes in demography – there are more and more women who are scientists now than was the case in the past.”
People are typically elected to the academy in their 50s, Brauman said, so the influx of women into scientific careers in the last few decades is only now being felt.
Brauman was asked if the numbers had anything to do with the debate that erupted after Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard University, suggested that one reason for the relative dearth of women in the upper ranks of science might be lesser innate talent for mathematics.
Brauman replied that the complicated process of nominating and winnowing candidates was well underway before Summers spoke.
He added that it would be dangerous to draw large conclusions from a few academy elections.
“You have to be careful about the statistics of small numbers,” he said. For example, 22 of this year’s new members are from institutions in California. “I would not know how to put a value judgment on this,” he said.
A list of the new members and new international associates can be found online at www.nas.edu.