Chemist Berry elected as National Science Academy home secretary

R. Stephen Berry, James Franck Distinguished Service Professor in Chemistry, has been elected as home secretary of the National Academy of Sciences. His four-year term will begin July 1.

As home secretary, Berry will oversee membership activities of the academy and serve as secretary of its governing council.

He also will assume chairmanship of the Research Council’s Report Review Committee.

Elected to the academy in 1980, Berry is active in National Research Council programs. He most recently chaired the Committee on Issues in the Transborder Flow of Scientific Data, which resulted in the 1997 report “Bits of Power: Issues in Global Access to Scientific Data.”

Berry also was one of the first two chemists to receive a fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 1983.

Berry conducts research in atomic collisions, thermodynamics, the efficient use of energy resources, the behavior of subnanoscale particles and their relation to proteins, and intellectual property and electronic scientific communication.

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, not-for-profit organization established by an act of Congress in 1863 to elect a membership of outstanding scientists and engineers and to serve as an independent adviser to the federal government on science and technology issues.