Fleming, McCullagh elected to Royal Society

Two faculty members -- Graham Fleming and Peter McCullagh -- have been elected Fellows of the Royal Society of London, the national academy of sciences for the United Kingdom.

Fleming, the Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor in Chemistry, was cited for "his work with ultrafast spectroscopy, using ultrashort laser pulses to follow step-by-step complex chemical reactions in chemistry and biology." He uses femtosecond lasers to study chemical reactions in solution and the primary steps in photosynthesis.

Peter McCullagh, Professor and Chairman of Statistics, was honored for his work on statistical theory and methods. He was cited for having "contributed particularly to the methods of analyzing and interpreting data, which has had a direct impact in many areas of application, especially in those areas of the biological and medical sciences calling for extensive use of statistical methods."

The Royal Society is an independent academy promoting the natural and applied sciences both nationally and internationally. Membership in the society, which was founded in 1660, has been limited since 1848 to those elected for their distinguished, original scientific work. Each year, up to 40 new Fellows (citizens of the British Commonwealth and Irish Republic) and six new Foreign Members are elected to the society; the society presently includes more than 1,000 Fellows and more than 100 Foreign Members.

Both McCullagh and Fleming are U.K. citizens.