Iowa State University chemist Patricia Thiel has been elected to the American Academy of 
Arts and Sciences. One of 200 new members, Thiel is a distinguished professor of chemistry and materials science and engineering and a scientist at Ames Laboratory. ISU reported that Thiel is the university’s second academy member. The first was agricultural economist Earl Heady, whose name adorns an ISU building. The academy was founded in 1780 to honor accomplished people and to engage them for the public good, ISU said in a release. Among the other members were Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Margaret Mead and Martin Luther King Jr.