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Academy President elected to elite US Academy
1 May 2009

President of the Australian Academy of Science, Professor Kurt Lambeck, has been elected a foreign associate of the prestigious US National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

Election to the NAS is considered one of the highest honours that can be accorded a scientist or engineer.

Membership is achieved by election only; there is no process by which an individual may apply for membership. Members and foreign associates are elected annually in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

Professor Lambeck is Distinguished Professor of Geophysics at the Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University. His recent work has focused on aspects of sea level change and the history of the Earth’s ice sheets during past glacial cycles.

Of his election, Professor Lambeck said:

‘The membership of the US National Academy forms one of the most impressive body of scientists in the world. To be elected to that pantheon, frankly, leaves me gobsmacked!’

Eminent scientist and Fellow of the Australian Academy and the NAS, Sir Gustav Nossal said of Professor Lambeck’s election:

‘The election of Professor Lambeck to the NAS is an honour of the greatest significance. The US is universally regarded as the leading scientific nation in the world. Election to its Academy is richly prized. Though they have a 15 times greater population than we do, they elect only 4 times more people each year than we do to our Academy. This ratio is also tighter than that of the UK’s Academy, the Royal Society. The award is, of course, for Kurt Lambeck’s enormous distinction as a geoscientist. However, it also indirectly reflects great credit on our Academy.’

The NAS is an honorific society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare.

As with the Australian Academy of Science, the NAS works outside the framework of government to ensure independent advice on matters of science, technology, and medicine. It enlists committees of the nation's top scientists, engineers, and other experts, all of whom volunteer their time to study specific concerns. Its membership is composed of approximately 2,100 members and 380 foreign associates, of whom nearly 200 have won Nobel Prizes.

Further information on the NAS: www.nasonline.org

Professor Lambeck’s biography: www.science.org.au/academy/council/lambeck