Neil W. Ashcroft, Cornell's Horace White Professor of Physics Emeritus, has been elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences as a foreign member. He joins Cornellians and Nobel laureates Roald Hoffmann, David M. Lee, the late Hans A. Bethe and the late Peter Debye in this distinction.

A leader in the study of theoretical condensed matter physics, and especially matter under extreme conditions, Ashcroft came to Cornell as a research associate in 1965 and was appointed to the faculty the following year. He has served as director of the Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics (1979-84); director of the Cornell Center for Materials Research (1997-2000); associate director of the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) (1978-89); and deputy director of CHESS (1990-97).

Ashcroft's research focuses on condensed matter theory, quantum and classical density functional theories and their applications, higher superconductivity in the lower elements in combination, ordered states of condensed matter at high pressures, general symmetry aspects of the metal-insulator transition, the theory of melting and other first-order phase transitions, ground-state liquid metals and their possible superfluidity, higher superconductivity in the lower elements in combination and the theory of metallic hydrogen and its alloys.

Educated in New Zealand and England, he is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences; a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Institute of Physics; and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

The Russian Academy of Sciences was established by Emperor Peter I in 1724 to further knowledge of the natural, social and human development principles that promote technological, economic, social and cultural development in Russia. The most prominent foreign scientists can be elected foreign members by the academy's General Assembly.