Marcia McNutt

Are America’s Science Prowess and Leadership at Risk?

Dr. Marcia McNutt was elected in 2016 as the first female president of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and subsequently reelected for a second term in 2022. She has focused her tenure on strengthening U.S. science leadership, advancing climate change solutions, and fostering scientific accountability. 

As NAS president, McNutt additionally chairs the National Research Council, the operating arm of all three of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The National Academies advise the nation on issues pertaining to science, technology, and health.

Together with the presidents of the National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Medicine, McNutt has led the Academies throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, spearheading the development of innovative new products and services such as rapid expert consultations that have enabled the delivery of timely, evidence-based advice on key pandemic-related issues.  The groundwork for these innovations was laid earlier in her first term, when McNutt oversaw a first-ever external review of the National Academies, sparking a transformation of the institution’s operations, products, and services and also serving as the basis for a recently adopted strategic plan.

Prior to her tenure at the NAS, she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Science journals after serving as the director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). During her tenure at the USGS, the agency responded to a number of major disasters, including earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, and Japan, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. For her work to contain the spill, Dr. McNutt was awarded the U.S. Coast Guard’s Meritorious Service Medal.

Before joining the USGS, Dr. McNutt served as president and chief executive officer of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in California. During her time at MBARI, the institution became a leader in developing biological and chemical sensors for remote ocean deployment, installed the first deep-sea cabled observatory in U.S. waters, and advanced the integration of artificial intelligence into autonomous underwater vehicles for complex undersea missions.

Dr. McNutt began her academic career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she was the E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and directed the Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science & Engineering, jointly offered by MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Her research area is the dynamics of the upper mantle and lithosphere on geologic time scales, work that has taken her to distant continents and oceans for field observations. She is a veteran of more than a dozen deep-sea expeditions, on most of which she was chief or co-chief scientist.

Dr. McNutt received a B.A. in physics from Colorado College and her Ph.D. in Earth Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She holds honorary doctoral degrees from numerous American and foreign universities. Dr. McNutt is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, UK, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a Foreign Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy. She is a fellow of AGU, the Geological Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Association of Geodesy. She received the Maurice Ewing Medal in 2007 from the American Geophysical Union for her contributions to deep-sea exploration.  Dr. McNutt has served on numerous evaluation and advisory boards for institutions such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Carnegie Corporation, Stanford University, Harvard University, Science Magazine, and Schlumberger.

After her term in office at the NAS comes to a close on July 1, 2026, Dr. McNutt will continue to serve a number of organizations as a member of advisory committees. She hopes to have more time to spend with her eight grandchildren.