Two Berkeley Lab Scientists Elected to National Academy of Engineering

By Curie

The National Academy of Engineering has elected two scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to its 2026 class — including Jennifer Doudna, the Nobel laureate whose work on CRISPR-Cas9 revolutionized genetic engineering.

Doudna, a professor at UC Berkeley and founder of the Innovative Genomics Institute, was recognized for developing the widely adopted DNA and RNA editing methods based on CRISPR-Cas9. She is now one of the few people to be elected to all three U.S. National Academies: the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Engineering.

"Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer," according to the academy. Membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to engineering research, practice, or education.

The second honoree, Nitash Balsara, a professor of chemical engineering at UC Berkeley and senior scientist at Berkeley Lab, was recognized for his work on block copolymer electrolytes — research that helps improve the performance and safety of lithium-ion rechargeable batteries. Balsara has led Berkeley Lab's Soft Matter Electron Microscopy Program for over 16 years and co-founded two battery startups.

"His research has helped improve the performance and safety of lithium-ion rechargeable batteries," according to UC Berkeley's announcement.

Both researchers hold joint affiliations with UC Berkeley. Doudna joined Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley in 2002, where she pursued research on RNA molecules. Her groundbreaking CRISPR-Cas9 technique was published in 2012 and later recognized with the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.