The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has elected eight NC State staff members to be fellows.

AAAS, the publisher of the Journal of Science, elects various individuals who have shown efforts to benefit or contribute to scientific advancement annually. Karen Daniels, NC State professor of physics and a staff member elected to be an AAAS fellow, said AAAS advocates for scientific advancements in several ways.

“[AAAS] provides access to information that the public can understand, digested from scientists, [and] they advocate on the behalf of scientists, so there’s a lot of different things that they do,” Daniels said.

The AAAS website states fellows “are a distinguished cadre of scientists, engineers and innovators who have been recognized for their achievements across disciplines, from research, teaching, and technology, to administration in academia, industry and government.” 

These faculty members include professors and researchers, Morton Barlaz, Marc Cubeta, Daniels, Jason Delborne, Candace Haigler, Ayman Hawari, Shuijin Hu and Mary Watzin. According to the NC State News, “NC State has the sixth-highest number of AAAS fellows of any university this year.” This year, there were a total of 564 fellows for the year, across various universities throughout the country.

The elected individuals were nominated by their peers or coworkers for the fellowship. Once you are an elected fellow, you can not be reelected another year. 

“You can’t apply, it just happens because some of your colleagues decided to nominate you for it,” Daniels said. “The people who are doing the nomination, they provide what you would call a resume … so a list of the persons’ accomplishments, so all professors have one of these documents around [and] you can usually find them on the professors’ website.”

Delborne, professor of science, policy and society in the department of forestry and environmental resources, was also one of the eight professors who was elected as an AAAS fellow. Delborne was unaware of his consideration into fellowship. 

“I was notified in November that I was inducted as part of the class of 2021 fellows,” Delborne said. “The way that AAAS invites fellows into their organization for this kind of designation is by what’s called section.”

There are sections of scholars with different kinds of specialties. Delborne was awarded into the section of Societal Impacts of Science and Engineering. The email Delborne received announced he was honored for exceptional contributions to the understanding and practice of public engagement for the governance of an emerging environmental technologies.

“My research is very interdisciplinary, and so I was especially grateful that the [AAAS] recognizes scholars, like me … given that I’m not a traditional academic who operates within a single discipline,” Delborne said.

Daniels was nominated for her current research on the mechanics of soft materials. She has a laboratory in the physics department, where she and other students conduct experiments related to her research on this subject.  

“All the folks at NC State, we are all being recognized for the fact that we have research careers, where we are publishing scientific studies, and also training the next generation to do that same thing,” Daniels said. “It’s a combination for us of usually teaching and research.” 

To nominate someone to be the next elected fellow of AAAS, professors can email Associate Vice Provost for Academic Personnel and Policy Kim Grainger.