Six San Diego researchers have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the elite honorary society whose have included such luminaries as Robert Oppenheimer and Marie Curie.
The local scholars are among 144 scientists worldwide chosen this year by the NAS, which was founded during the Lincoln istration to advise Congress on science and technology. Current select new .
hip is dominated by many famous, older schools, including Harvard, MIT, Stanford and the University of Michigan. UC San Diego stepped into that rarefied air this year with four of its faculty earning election, based on the quality and impact of their work. One scientist was also chosen from Scripps Research and another from the Salk Institute, both located in La Jolla.
UCSD more typically has just one or two scholars elected per year, if any.
The scholars include:
Lisa Levin, marine ecologist, UCSD. Levin is famous for using submersibles to explore the presence and nature of life in the world’s deepest oceans and the impact of commercial fishing far beneath the surface. She’s also highlighted the damage caused by deep-sea mining and has studied how methane can contribute to climate change. Levin is one of a handful of people who’ve made more than 50 deep dives in the famed submersible Alvin.
Lynne Talley, physical oceanographer, UCSD. Talley studies circulation patterns in the ocean, including the movement of heat, which is key to understanding climate change. She’s supplemented that by helping lead an effort to deploy robotic climate sensors throughout the world’s oceans. And she was a lead author of a major 2007 climate change report that earned contributing authors a share of that year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
Fan Chung, mathematician, UCSD. Chung is a pioneer in graph theory, or the study of graphs — particularly useful in revealing and exploiting important connections found in data networks. A good example, say scientists, is embodied by Netflix: A who selects a certain type of movie will be linked to similar fare by a Netflix algorithm. The same sort of thing occurs when Facebook algorithms link a to mutual friends, or when Siri tells a driver the fastest way to reach a destination. Even bigger change is expected with the rise of AI.
Stephen Hedrick, molecular biologist, UCSD. Hedrick calls humans the “most diseased species on Earth.” His use of that superlative partly arose from his groundbreaking research on T lymphocytes — white blood cells that fight disease. It also arises from his broader research on the nature and evolution of infectious diseases, including HIV. He’s further known for advocating for vaccines, most recently in the fight against COVID-19.
Susan Kaech, immunologist, Salk Institute. Like Hedrick, Kaech is a leading expert on T cells. She’s particularly noted for her insights about so-called memory T cells, which help give humans long-term immunity against infections. This is especially important for people with weakened immune systems. Her research on the interplay between tumors and immune cells also has helped scientists better understand how to fight viral infections and chronic diseases.
John (Jack) Johnson, virologist, Scripps Research. There are many types of viruses, including some that people don’t automatically think of, notably those that infect plants and insects. Johnson has broadly studied them during his long career, helping advance a complex area of bioscience. He also devised a way to place a variety of molecules on the surface of a virus, which might hasten the development of some types of pharmaceutical drugs.
