Professor Joseph DeSimone has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), one of the highest honors that a U.S. scientist or engineer can receive. The Academy is a private, non-profit society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, "dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the public good."

Dr. DeSimone is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Chemical Engineering at NC State and Chancellor's Eminent Professor of Chemistry at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is also a member of both the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a distinction that few researchers have achieved.