Four foreign female Nobel laureates have been elected as foreign members of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST).
KAST announced Wednesday at its second extraordinary board meeting that Anne L'Huillier, professor at Lund University in Sweden; Donna Strickland, professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada; May-Britt Moser, professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology; and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, doctor at the Pasteur Institute in France, have joined as foreign members.
The academy selects renowned foreign scholars as foreign members, with the number capped at 100, or 20% of its full membership. Currently, 59 scholars, including 34 Nobel and Fields Medal laureates, serve as foreign members.
L'Huillier, one of the newly elected, is a physicist who pioneered the field of attosecond physics and received the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics. Attosecond physics is a field that observes the movement of electrons within atoms and molecules using attosecond pulse lasers, with an attosecond representing one quintillionth of a second. Strickland is a physicist who contributed to the advancement of ultra-high-intensity, ultra-short-wavelength laser technology. She received the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics for her work on developing chirped pulse amplification (CPA). Moser received the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her research on grid cells that constitute the brain's positioning system, while Barré-Sinoussi received the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
With these new selections, the number of female foreign members at KAST has risen to seven. The academy plans to use this momentum to expand its network with female scientists and strengthen international academic exchanges. KAST President Jin-Ho Chung stressed, "The fact that female scholars from diverse countries such as Sweden, Norway, and France have joined our network of foreign members and Nobel laureates—which had been somewhat skewed toward American and male scholars—is significant in broadening the scope of global academic exchange and securing diversity." He added, "The academy plans to pursue substantive exchange and participation programs so that the election of foreign members does not end as a mere honorary appointment."
