Two Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientists have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. They join 118 other new members and 30 new international members.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit institution that was established under a congressional charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It recognizes achievement in science by election to membership, and — with the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine — provides science, engineering, and health policy advice to the federal government and other organizations. The 2025 electees bring the total number of active members to 2,662 with 556 international members.
Michael Crommie is a senior faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and Professor of Physics at UC Berkeley. Crommie is internationally recognized for his ground-breaking work using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to explore the local electronic, magnetic, and mechanical properties of atomic and molecular structures at surfaces. Among his many contributions to condensed matter physics and nanoscience include the first image of an individual Kondo impurity, the first visualization of the Jahn-Teller effect for a single molecule, and the first STM imaging of a gate-tunable single-atomic-layer device.
Robert Ritchie is a senior faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and the H.T. & Jessie Chua Distinguished Professor of Engineering, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Professor of Materials Science & Engineering at UC Berkeley. Much of his pioneering research is focused on investigating the mechanical behavior of metals and ceramics as well as composites and biological materials. Among his vast body of work, which includes patented technologies and hundreds of scientific papers and other publications, his most notable discoveries uncovered the microstructural mechanisms by which structural materials resist fracture and fatigue.
Another new member is Jizhong Zhou, a visiting faculty member in Berkeley Lab’s Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division of the Earth & Environmental Sciences Area, and a chaired professor and director of the Institute for Environmental Genomics at the University of Oklahoma. His expertise is in microbial ecology and genomics.
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Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is committed to groundbreaking research focused on discovery science and solutions for abundant and reliable energy supplies. The lab’s expertise spans materials, chemistry, physics, biology, earth and environmental science, mathematics, and computing. Researchers from around the world rely on the lab’s world-class scientific facilities for their own pioneering research. Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest problems are best addressed by teams, Berkeley Lab and its scientists have been recognized with 16 Nobel Prizes. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.