Source(s):
Robert Cousins (352) 392-2133
Michael Moseley (352) 392-2253
GAINESVILLE—Robert Cousins, Boston family professor of human nutrition with the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, is one of two UF faculty members elected Tuesday (5/3) to the National Academy of Sciences, a recognition considered one of the highest honors accorded a U.S. scientist.
Also elected is Michael Moseley, a UF professor of anthropology. Cousins and Moseley join an elite group of 1,843 active members in the academy.
Cousins, director of the UF’s Center for Nutritional Sciences, came to UF from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, where he was the youngest person ever to hold the title of distinguished professor. He has received about $4 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health and has conducted research in several areas of nutritional biochemistry, including the role of nutrient trace metals such as copper and zinc in human and animal biological systems. Cousins is a recognized world authority on zinc metabolism and nutrition.
He has served as president and board chairman of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, president of the American Society for Nutritional Sciences and associate editor of the Journal of Nutrition. He currently is an associate editor of the Annual Review of Nutrition and holds the Boston Family Chair of Human Nutrition, an eminent scholars chair, at UF.
“This means a great deal to me,” Cousins said. “The academy elects people in recognition of their achievements in continuing research. Our work in the field of micronutrients, conducted over a period of 30 years, has been innovative. To be recognized by peers in your field of scientific inquiry is a great honor.”
Moseley, director of the Institute for Archaeology and Paleo-Environmental Studies at UF, is one of the world’s best-known Andean archeologists. He earned his doctorate at Harvard University in 1968 and came to UF in 1984 from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. His research has centered on pre-Hispanic cultures in Peru and northern Chile, and he has done extensive research into the effects of climate on cultural changes. Moseley also has done research on environmental constraints on Florida’s Gulf coast.
Members are elected into the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
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. The academy 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.
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