LINDA BARTOSHUK, Ph.D., a professor of Community Dentistry and Behavioral Science, was recently elected to a three-year term on the Council of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The NAS is charged with providing independent advice, outside the framework of government, to the nation’s leaders on science, technology and medicine issues that affect U.S. policy decisions.
Established in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln during the height of the Civil War, the NAS is comprised of approximately 2,100 members and 380 foreign associates who are elected in recognition of their achievements in original research. Bartoshuk, a world-renowned researcher who specializes in the sense of taste and genetic variations in taste perception, was elected to the NAS in 2003 and is one of only eight UF faculty members in the Academy, and the only one serving on the 17-member council.
As a member of the NAS, Bartoshuk is in esteemed company with many famed historical figures such as Alexander Graham Bell; anthropologist Margaret Mead; Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; and psychologist and philosopher John Dewey.
Bartoshuk will represent the disciplines of anthropology, psychology, social and political sciences and economic sciences, serving as their voice on the council.
Bartoshuk spent 35 years at Yale University prior to joining UF in 2005, and is a Presidential Endowed Professor in the College of Dentistry. In addition to being a member of the NAS, in 1995 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.