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Eric A. Cornell, a physicist at the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences, it was announced today. Cornell, a NIST fellow and member of the Quantum Physics Division of NIST's Physics Laboratory, also is a fellow of JILA, a joint endeavor with the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a professor adjoint in the University's Department of Physics. Election to membership in the Academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a U.S. scientist, and recognizes their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

Cornell's research, studying the properties and behavior of Bose-Einstein condensates, has garnered world-wide recognition ever since he and another JILA fellow, Carl Weiman, a CU-Boulder professor, created the first Bose-Einstein condensate, a new form of matter, in 1995.

The National Academy of Sciences is a organization of scientists and engineers established by Congress and dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the general welfare. Additional information about the Academy is available on the World Wide Web at www4.nas.edu/nas/nashome.nsf.

To see the NAS news release listing all 60 new members, access www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/050200?OpenDocument.

In a similar honor bestowed earlier this year, the National Academy of Engineering elected two NIST scientists, Howard R. Baum, a fellow in the Building and Fire Research Laboratory, and Hratch G. Semerjian, director of the Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory. Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded an engineer.

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