A neuroscientist and a veterinary virologist at the University of California, Davis, were elected today to the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors accorded to scientists and engineers in the United States.

Edward G. "Ted" Jones, a professor of psychiatry and director of the Center for Neuroscience, and Tilahun Yilma, a professor of virology and director of the International Laboratory of Molecular Biology for Tropical Disease Agents, are among 72 new U.S. members and 18 foreign associates chosen this year by the academy.

Overall, 15 new members were elected from the University of California, including four each from Berkeley and San Francisco, two each from Davis and San Diego, and one each from Irvine, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. Additionally, one member was elected from the UC-administered Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

"Membership in the National Academy of Sciences is arguably the highest and most prestigious honor that the country gives to a researcher," said Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef. "This recognition speaks to the quality of Professor Jones' and Professor Yilma's scholarly work. We couldn't be prouder of their accomplishments."

The researchers were notified of their honors with 6 a.m. calls from colleagues at the academy. Jones was away from campus, and for Yilma the day will be business-as-usual as he prepares to head to Washington, D.C., Wednesday for a National Institutes of Health meeting of smallpox vaccine researchers.

"But that's a great way to celebrate -- to do the science," Yilma said.

Edward G. Jones

Jones, 65, has been a member of the UC Davis faculty since 1998, when he was named director of the Center for Neuroscience and professor of psychiatry. He is an authority on brain anatomy and is recognized as a leading researcher of the central nervous system. In recent years, he has introduced molecular biology methods to systems neuroscience to provide an integrated way of studying the nervous system.

He has done groundbreaking work on schizophrenia, focusing on how changes at the molecular and cellular level are associated with the disorder. His studies have shown that seemingly minute abnormalities in human brains can cause chemical imbalances and lead to schizophrenia and other serious, long-term nervous-system disorders.

He also belongs to a group of scientists working on the nation's Human Brain Project, which supports development of databases on the brain and of technologies for managing and sharing neuroscience information.

Born in New Zealand, Jones received his medical degree in 1962 from the University of Otago Medical School. He earned his doctoral degree in neuroanatomy in 1968 from the University of Oxford, England. After teaching at Oxford and in New Zealand, he joined the faculty of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo., in 1972.

In 1984, having establishing his reputation as a preeminent neuroanatomist, he became chair of the department of anatomy and neurobiology at UC Irvine.

His leadership in the international neuroscience community has included serving as director of the Neural Systems Laboratory of the RIKEN Frontier Research Program in Japan. In 1998, he was elected president of the Society for Neuroscience, a worldwide organization of more than 28,000 scientists and physicians.

Jones also is the co-author of more than 20 books and more than 400 scientific publications. He has been honored three times as one of the most cited science authors of the year.

His numerous awards and honors include the Cajal Medal for Excellence in Research, the Henry Gray Award from the American Association of Anatomists and the Karl Spencer Lashley Award from the American Philosophical Society. In 1997, he was awarded an honorary doctor of medicine degree by the University of Salamanca in Spain, one of the world's oldest and most respected academic institutions.

Tilahun Yilma

Tilahun Yilma, 60, was born in Ethiopia. He earned his bachelor's degree in veterinary science in 1968 and a doctor of veterinary medicine degree in 1970, both from UC Davis. He then returned to Ethiopia and spent two years as a veterinarian vaccinating nomadic cattle herds against rinderpest, a deadly viral disease affecting cattle and wildlife.

In 1977, he earned a doctoral degree in microbiology and joined the UC Davis faculty as an assistant professor in the School of Veterinary Medicine. In that position and as a research associate for New York State College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University, he worked for three years at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York. He then served five years as a faculty member at Washington State University, returning to UC Davis in 1986.

One of Yilma's landmark achievements has been development in 1986 of a genetically engineered vaccine for rinderpest. The vaccine was approved in 1997 for widespread use throughout Africa. It was the first genetically engineered vaccine to be released by a U.S.-funded researcher in a foreign country. Yilma went on to develop rinderpest diagnostic kits and organize training programs in order to make the kits available to African scientists. His current research is aimed at developing an AIDS vaccine and an improved smallpox vaccine.

In addition to his research, he has devoted extensive efforts to securing funding for biotechnology laboratories in developing nations and has maintained an active voice in Ethiopian politics.

Over the years, his accomplishments have been recognized with numerous professional and campus awards including the Smith Kline Beecham Award for Excellence in Research in 1988, the Ciba-Geigy Award for Research in Animal Science in 1989, the UC Davis Distinguished Public Service Award in 1994 and the UC Davis Faculty Research Lecturer Award in 2002.