Under the new program led by AAAS, educational institutions commit to removing barriers to STEM achievement for women, minorities and people with disabilities through participating in a program of voluntary self-assessment.

Steven Chu has been chosen as president-elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Mildred Dresselhaus, a renowned physicist and celebrated Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who earned the title “Queen of Carbon” for deepening the world’s understanding of the atomic properties of carbon and the electronic properties of materials, died on 20 February following a brief illness. She was 86.