The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has chosen 120 members and 30 international members, which includes five faculty members from MIT and 13 alumni. Professors Rodney Brooks, Parag Pathak, Scott Sheffield, Benjamin Weiss, and Yukiko Yamashita were selected in acknowledgment of their “notable and ongoing accomplishments in original research.” Being inducted into the National Academy of Sciences is regarded as one of the most prestigious accolades a scientist can attain throughout their career.
Among the elected MIT alumni are: David Altshuler ’86, Rafael Camerini-Otero ’66, Kathleen Collins PhD ’92, George Daley PhD ’89, Scott Doney PhD ’91, John Doyle PhD ’91, Jonathan Ellman ’84, Shanhui Fan PhD ’97, Julia Greer ’97, Greg Lemke ’78, Stanley Perlman PhD ’72, David Reichman PhD ’97, and Risa Wechsler ’96.
The new electees this year increase the total count of active members to 2,662, including 556 international members. The NAS, a private, nonprofit organization, was established under a congressional charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It honors scientific achievement through membership election, and along with the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine, offers guidance on science, engineering, and health policy to the federal government and additional institutions.
Rodney Brooks
Rodney A. Brooks holds the title of Panasonic Professor of Robotics Emeritus at MIT and is the co-founder and chief technical officer of Robust AI. In the past, he was the founder, chair, and CTO of Rethink Robotics and established iRobot Corp. Additionally, he served as the prior director of both the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Brooks earned degrees in pure mathematics from Flinders University of South Australia and a PhD in computer science from Stanford University in 1981. His research career includes positions at Carnegie Mellon University and MIT, and he held a faculty role at Stanford before joining MIT’s faculty in 1984.
Brooks’ investigation involves engineering intelligent robots to function in unstructured settings as well as comprehending human intelligence by creating humanoid robots. He has authored numerous papers and books on various topics including model-based computer vision, path planning, uncertainty analysis, robot assembly, active vision, autonomous robots, micro-robots, micro-actuators, planetary exploration, representation, artificial life, humanoid robots, and compiler design.
Brooks is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a founding fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Association for Computing Machinery. He has also been recognized as a foreign fellow of The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, as well as a corresponding member of the Australian Academy of Science. He received the Computers and Thought Award at the 1991 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the IEEE Founders Medal in 2023.
Parag Pathak
Parag Pathak serves as the Class of 1922 Professor of Economics and is a co-founder and director of MIT’s Blueprint Labs. He joined the faculty at MIT in 2008 after earning his PhD in business economics, as well as his master’s and bachelor’s degrees in applied mathematics, all from Harvard University.
Pathak is primarily known for his contributions to market design and education. His research has influenced student placement and school choice structures nationwide, including in Boston, New York City, Chicago, and Washington; his recent work applies market design principles to the distribution of essential medical resources. He has also produced significant research on school quality, charter schools, and affirmative action. Within urban economics, he has assessed the impact of foreclosures on property values and analyzed the housing market’s response to the elimination of rent control in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Pathak’s work on market design earned him the 2018 John Bates Clark Medal, awarded by the American Economic Association to the economist under 40 deemed to have made a considerable impact in the field. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, and the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory. Additionally, Pathak co-directs the market design working group at the National Bureau of Economic Research and is a co-founder of Avela Education.
Scott Sheffield
Scott Sheffield, Leighton Family Professor of Mathematics, has been part of the MIT faculty since 2008 after serving at the Courant Institute at New York University. He earned his PhD in mathematics from Stanford University in 2003 under Amir Dembo’s guidance and completed his BA and MA degrees in mathematics from Harvard University in 1998.
Sheffield is a theorist in probability, focusing on geometrical issues that emerge in statistical physics, game theory, and metric spaces, alongside enduring challenges in percolation theory and random surfaces.
In 2017, Sheffield was awarded the Clay Research Award alongside Jason Miller for their “innovative and fundamentally novel work on the geometry of Gaussian free field and its application to solving open problems in the theory of two-dimensional random structures.” In 2023, he was granted the Leonard Eisenbud Prize with Jason Miller “for contributions to random two-dimensional geometries, particularly on Liouville Quantum Gravity.” Later that same year, Sheffield received the Frontiers of Science Award with Jason Miller for the paper “Liouville quantum gravity and the Brownian map I: the QLE(8/3,0) metric.” He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science.
Benjamin Weiss
Benjamin Weiss holds the Robert R. Schrock Professorship of Earth and Planetary Sciences. He pursued undergraduate studies in physics at Amherst College and subsequently delved into planetary science and geology at Caltech, where he attained a master’s degree in 2001 and a PhD in 2003. Weiss’ doctoral research on the Martian meteorite ALH 84001 unveiled insights into the ancient Martian climate and magnetic field and indicated that certain meteorites could transport materials from Mars to Earth without heat sterilization. He joined the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences faculty in 2004 and currently chairs the Program in Planetary Science.
An expert in magnetometry, Weiss aims to comprehend the formation and evolution of Earth, terrestrial planets, and small solar system bodies through laboratory investigations, spacecraft observations, and field studies. His notable discoveries contribute to understanding the early nebular magnetic field, the moon’s enduring core dynamo, and asteroids that once generated core dynamos. In addition to leading roles on ongoing NASA missions — serving as deputy principal investigator for Psyche and co-investigator for Mars Perseverance and Europa Clipper — Weiss has participated in science teams for SpaceIL Beresheet, JAXA Hayabusa 2, and ESA Rosetta missions.
As the principal investigator of the MIT Planetary Magnetism Laboratory, Weiss focuses on advancing high-sensitivity, high-resolution techniques in magnetic microscopy to visualize the magnetic fields embedded in rock samples collected from meteorites, lunar surfaces, and various Earth sites. Analyzing these magnetic signatures can shed light on conditions within the early solar system, historical climates on Earth and Mars, and factors influencing habitability.
Yukiko Yamashita
Yukiko Yamashita serves as a professor of biology at MIT, is a key member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and works as an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). She obtained her BS in biology in 1994 and her PhD in biophysics in 1999 from Kyoto University. From 2001 to 2006, she conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford University. Appointed to the University of Michigan faculty in 2007, she became an HHMI Investigator in 2014 and was appointed professor of biology at MIT and member of the Whitehead Institute in 2020.
Yukiko Yamashita explores two essential features of multicellular organisms: the diversification of cell fates through asymmetric cell division and the transmission of genetic information through generations via the germline.
Among the exceptional capabilities of multicellular organisms is the production of various distinct cell types through asymmetric cell division and the eternal transmission of the germline genome to succeeding generations. By examining these mechanisms through the model system of the Drosophila male germline, research has opened avenues into new fields, such as the roles of satellite DNA, deemed “genomic junk,” and their potential involvement in speciation.
Yamashita is recognized as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the American Society for Cell Biology. She received the Tsuneko and Reiji Okazaki Award in 2016 and was honored as a MacArthur Fellow in 2011.