National Academy of Sciences Membership
UF Faculty in the National Academy of Sciences:
Pierre Sikivie
Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Physics
Election Year: 2026
Research/Expertise: Dr. Sikivie is best known for his contributions to the study of axions, which are hypothetical elementary particles that some scientists believe could make up dark matter. He earned the Galileo Galilei Medal in 2025 and the American Physical Society’s 2020 J.J. Sakurai Prize. He also was recognized as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Lifetime Fellow in 2024. He started at UF in 1981.
Robert D. Holt
Election Year: 2022
NAS Section: Biological Sciences
Research/Expertise: An Eminent Scholar in Biology and the Arthur R. Marshall, Jr., Chair in Ecological Studies, Holt is known for research in theoretical and conceptual ecology, as well as the intersection of ecology and evolutionary biology.
Retired; Election Year: 2003
NAS Section: Psychology
Research/Expertise: Bartoshuk is a leading psychologist who studies the genetic variation in taste perception, oral pain, and taste disorders. She has demonstrated that inhibitory processes underlie normal and abnormal tastes, and that individual human taste differences are based on an incomplete dominant gene. She has also shown that those who experience the most intense taste have an especially large number of fungiform papaillae on their tongue.
Robert Cousins
Election Year: 2000
NAS Section: Animal, Nutritional, and Applied Microbial Sciences
Research/Expertise: nutritional biochemistry and genomics, Zinc metabolism, transport and function, Zinc metallobiochemistry
Citation: Cousins is internationally recognized as a leading authority and investigator of zinc nutrition, metabolism, and function. He defined the hormonal and nutritional factors that regulate zinc metabolism at the cellular and molecular level and thereby significantly improved our understanding of the biological, nutritional, and clinical importance of this micronutrient.
Roy Curtiss, III
Election Year: 2001
NAS Section: Animal, Nutritional, and Applied Microbial Sciences
Research/Expertise: I endeavor to understand the genetic and biochemical bases of pathogenicity of Salmonella typhimurium, S. typhi, S. paratyphi A, and Escherichia coli. Emphasis is on understanding the genetic control over persistence in and transmissibility from the ambient environment, attachment to and persistence on eukaryotic surfaces (colonization), invasion of and persistence and multiplication in tissues, and host specificity. Studies are in progress to understand how genes for virulence properties are regulated in response to ambient environmental stresses and to different compartments in the infected eukaryotic host. Other studies use attenuated Salmonella strains expressing virulence determinants (i.e., protective antigens) from other pathogens as vectors to home to the nasal-, bronchial- and gut-associated lymphoid tissues and induce mucosal, systemic, and cellular immunity to the pathogen whose virulence antigens are expressed by the recombinant vaccine strain. Research to improve these recombinant attenuated Salmonella antigen and DNA vaccine delivery vectors is in progress to either enhance Th1-dependent cellular immune responses or Th2-dependent humoral and mucosal immune responses. Vaccines are being designed with biological containment features to preclude their survival in nature. Various cell types, animals, and humans are used for the analysis of virulence, the immune response, and protective immunity.
Laura Helen Greene
Election Year: 2006
Physics, Strongly Correlated Fermionic Systems; High Transition Temperature Semiconductors
Art Hebard
Election Year: 2017
NAS Section:
Harry J. Klee
Emeritus; Election Year: 2012
Professor, Eminent Scholar, and Dickman Chair for Tomato Improvement, department of horticultural sciences and plant molecular and cellular biology program.
Retired; Election Year: 2012
NAS Section: Human Environmental Sciences
Burton H. Singer
Election Year: 1994
NAS Section: Social and Political Sciences
Citation: Singer's work has altered the ways in which quantitative studies of economic, social, and epidemiological processes are carried out to determine causal mechanisms and associations. His recognition of methodological problems, especially regarding effects of population heterogeneity and selectivity, and recommendations for new approaches influence investigations of longitudinal and duration data
Douglas Soltis
Election Year: 2017
NAS Section: Plant Biology
Pamela Soltis
Election Year: 2016
NAS Section: Plant Biology
J. G. Thompson
Emeritus; Election Year: 1971
NAS Section: Mathematics
Clifford M. Will
Election year: 2007
NAS Section: Physics
Citation: Will invented experimental tests to confirm that general relativity is the correct classical theory of gravity. He is well-known for his computations of gravitational waveforms from coalescing neutron-star and black-hole binaries, which form the foundations of gravitational wave searches.
Elizabeth Wing
Retired; Election Year: 2006
NAS Section: Environmental Archaeology