UW-Madison physicist elected to National Academy of Sciences

Susan N. Coppersmith, a University of Wisconsin–Madison professor of physics, was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences today (April 28), in recognition of her “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.”

Coppersmith is a theoretical physicist who explores the fundamental properties of many types of matter. At UW–Madison, she has studied how crustaceans form their shells, how advanced computers may operate at the atomic scale, and, in collaboration with the university’s Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, how to manipulate matter at scales of a few billionths of a meter.

The National Academy of Sciences is a private organization of scientists and engineers dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the general welfare. It was established in 1863 by a congressional act of incorporation signed by Abraham Lincoln that calls on the academy to act as an official adviser to the federal government, upon request, in any matter of science or technology. The academy now has 2,150 active members.