Three different, highly prestigious scientific, public policy, or scholarly societies have recently selected new members from the ranks of UCSB faculty members and philanthropic supporters.

David Awschalom, professor of physics and electrical and computer engineering, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. He was among the 72 new members and 18 foreign associates elected during the 144th annual meeting of the academy.

The NAS is the country’s most prestigious scientific organization, and election to membership in the academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a U.S. scientist or engineer. The total number of active members is 2,025. Awschalom’s election brings to a total of 26 the number of current UCSB faculty members in the National Academy of Sciences.

Theoretical physicist David Gross, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004, was elected a fellow of the American Philosophical Society (APS), the oldest learned society in the country. Election to the APS honors extraordinary accomplishments in all fields of intellectual endeavor.

Director of UCSB’s Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, Gross was one of 52 new members selected by his peers to join the distinguished society. Those elected bring the total number of active members to 960 throughout the world. Since 1900, more than 260 members of the society have received the Nobel Prize.

Gross, who joined the UCSB faculty in January 1997, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for solving what was considered to be the last great remaining problem of the “Standard Model” of the quantum mechanical picture of reality. He and his co-recipients—Frank Wilczek of M.I.T. and H. David Politzer of Caltech—discovered how the nucleus of an atom works.

John Endler, emeritus professor of biology, last month was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Scientists. The academy is composed of scholars and practitioners from diverse fields, which enables the organization to conduct a wide range of interdisciplinary studies and public policy research.

An expert of world-renown on the evolution of color patterns in animals, Endler recently retired from UCSB’s Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology where he taught for more than 21 years.

Also joining the academy in this year’s class of distinguished fellows was Orange County business leader and philanthropist Donald Bren, for whom UCSB’s Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management is named.

Bren is chairman of The Irvine Company, a privately held real estate investment company best known for the communities it has created on The Irvine Ranch in Orange County. Bren’s personal philanthropy, and that of his foundation, have enriched UC for many years. Among many significant gifts, he has endowed more professorships than any other single donor in the University’s history.

John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and other scholar-patriots founded the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1780.