two college of science professors are among seven texas a&m university faculty members recognized as 2021 fellows of the american association for the advancement of science (aaas) dr terry thomas university professor of biology deborah bell-pedersen and university distinguished professor of statistics and dean of science valen e johnson are among the 564 aaas members honored this year by their peers for their efforts to advance science or its applications they join the college of engineerings robin murphy the college of agriculture and life sciences stephen safe the school of public healths virender k sharma and the college of dentistrys kathy svoboda and reginald w taylor as the universitys most recent inductees in addition to being formally announced in the aaas flagship journal science the 2021 aaas fellows class will be inducted during a virtual aaas fellows forum at the 2022 aaas annual meeting set for february 17-20 bell-pedersen is cited by the biological sciences section of the aaas for distinguished contributions to the field of molecular biology particularly using neurospora to understand genetic controls of circadian rhythms and circadian rhythm controls of gene expression johnson is cited by the statistics section of the aaas for distinguished contributions to the field of bayesian statistics and cancer research and exceptional scientific leadership locally and nationally this is a significant milestone said texas a&m interim vice president for research jack g baldauf congratulations to each for receiving this high honor the tradition of aaas fellows began in 1874 currently members can be considered for the rank of fellow if nominated by the steering groups of the associations 24 sections or by any three fellows who are current aaas members so long as two of the three sponsors are not affiliated with the nominees institution or by the aaas chief executive officer the aaas fellow honor comes with an expectation that recipients maintain the highest standards of professional ethics and scientific integrity to date the texas a&m college of science features 28 current or former faculty members who have earned the prestigious honor according to combined college and aaas records in addition to several who hold joint appointments within texas a&m science brief biographies for texas a&m sciences 2021 aaas fellows are included below: deborah bell-pedersen an internationally recognized leader in the fields of circadian and fungal biology joined the texas a&m department of biology in 1997 after earning her phd at the state university of new york at albany in 1991 and completing postdoctoral work at dartmouth medical school she currently serves as associate head for research in texas a&m biology for which she previously was associate head of operations for the past three decades bell-pedersens research has focused on molecular studies of the circadian biological clock in neurospora crassa a filamentous fungus that has been used as a model organism for research since the 1940s as an expert in the mechanisms underpinning the biology of cellular clocks she was involved in sequencing and annotating the neurospora genome and created the first dna chips containing the funguss genes that led to major insights into its biological clock at texas a&m bell-pedersens research within her center for biological clocks research-affiliated laboratory continues to investigate how the circadian clock regulates daily rhythms in mrna and protein levels paving the way for improvements in human health and in treating circadian disorders her work has been continuously funded by a variety of federal state and private sources most prominently the national institutes of health (nih) a 2014 fellow of the american academy of microbiology bell-pedersen has been a member of the nih cellular signaling and regulatory systems study section and served on numerous other review panels for the nih national science foundation and nasa as well as the editorial boards for many premier life sciences journals including eukaryotic cell her many career honors in addition to being named one of five inaugural holders of texas a&ms university professorship in 2019 include a 2015 texas a&m association of former students distinguished achievement award for research the 2013 texas a&m women former students network eminent scholar award a 2010 sigma xi distinguished lectureship and 2010 university distinguished lectureship at texas a&m the 2010 davidson award from baylor university the 2010 ethel ashworth-tsutsui memorial lectureship at texas a&m a 2007 texas a&m association of former students college-level distinguished achievement award in teaching and the 2005 joann treat research excellence award valen e johnson a renowned expert in bayesian statistics and using probability distributions to represent uncertainties with regard to unknown quantities has been dean of science and holder of the richard h harrison iii/external advisory council endowed deans chair in science since may 2019 after serving the previous year as interim dean he joined the texas a&m department of statistics in 2012 following eight years as a professor of biostatistics at the university of texas md anderson cancer center in addition to previous administrative experience as acting division head of quantitative sciences and department chair of biostatistics at md anderson johnson served as head of texas a&m statistics from march 2014 to may 2019 he was appointed in 2016 as a university distinguished professor texas a&ms highest rank for faculty johnson earned his phd in statistics from the university of chicago in 1989 and began his independent academic career at duke university serving 12 years there as a professor of statistics following a yearlong stint as a technical staff member at los alamos national laboratory from 2001 to 2002 he spent two years as a professor of biostatistics at the university of michigan prior to arriving at md anderson in 2004 during the past three decades johnson has analyzed comparative intelligences among non-human primates probed grade inflation at american universities examined the validity of student evaluations of teaching and developed more effective tests for evaluating cancer drugs he has also developed models to estimate the reliability of space shuttles and other early stage rockets and to gauge the effectiveness of the us nuclear arsenal in addition he has used his statistical expertise to reinterpret the meaning of statistical significance and p-values providing new insights into the sources of non-reproducibility of scientific research johnson is an elected fellow of both the american statistical association (1999) and the royal statistical society as well as an elected member in the international statistics institute he holds two patents and has published two books ordinal data models and grade inflation: a crisis in college education for more on the american association for the advancement of science visit wwwaaasorg # # # # # # # # # # about research at texas a&m university: as one of the worlds leading research institutions texas a&m is at the forefront in making significant contributions to scholarship and discovery including in science and technology research conducted at texas a&m generated annual expenditures of more than $113 billion in fiscal year 2020 and ranked 14th in the national science foundations higher education research and development survey texas a&ms research creates new knowledge that provides basic fundamental and applied contributions resulting in many cases in economic benefits to the state nation and world to learn more visit research@texas a&m about the american association for the advancement of science: the american association for the advancement of science (aaas) is the worlds largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal science as well as science translational medicine; science signaling; a digital open-access journal science advances; science immunology; and science robotics aaas was founded in 1848 and includes nearly 250 affiliated societies and academies of science serving 10 million individuals the nonprofit aaas is open to all and fulfills its mission to advance science and serve society through initiatives in science policy international programs science education public engagement and more for additional information about aaas see wwwaaasorg