Marcia Kemper McNutt (born February 19, 1952) is an American geophysicist and the 22nd president of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of the United States.

[7][1] After holding a brief appointment at the University of Minnesota, McNutt worked for three years on earthquake prediction at the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California.

She previously served as director of the Joint Program in Oceanography and Applied Ocean Science and Engineering, a cooperative effort of MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

[18][19] Her research has included studies of ocean island volcanism in French Polynesia, continental break-up in the Western United States, and uplift of the Tibet plateau.

[24][25] During that time the RV Western Flyer, MBARI's research vessel, made expeditions from Canada to Baja California and the Hawaiian Islands.

[31] In May 2010, McNutt headed the Flow Rate Technical Group which attempted to measure the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

[35] A refined estimate based on new pressure readings, data, and analysis, released by the United States Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and McNutt in August, said that 4.9 million barrels (with uncertainty of plus or minus approximately 10 percent) of oil had leaked from the well until it was capped on July 15.

[38][39] Subject to approval by U.S. federal courts, BP agreed to a settlement in November 2012 in which the company pleaded guilty to felony charges of misconduct or neglect concerning eleven deaths at the explosion site.

[41] Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed a lawsuit against the Department of the Interior and a complaint about a NOAA scientist in the Flow Rate Technical Group which McNutt led.

[45] In September 2011, a USGS team including Jack H. Medlin, Said Mirzad, Stephen G. Peters and Robert D. Tucker[46] published a report[47] which they presented at the Afghan embassy in Washington, DC, detailing 57 information packages about Areas of Interest (AOIs) that total at least 1,000,000 metric tons of untapped mineral deposits they have found in Afghanistan.

[48] Scientific American speculated that replacing "opium and Taliban strongholds with a mining bonanza" could "change U.S. foreign policy and world stability".

[52] McNutt said:[53] More than 130 years after the USGS first began producing quality geologic maps here on Earth, it is exciting to have the reach of our science extend across 400 million miles to this volcanically active moon of Jupiter.

[54] McNutt, quoted by John Platt for Scientific American, said: No other landscape in these United States has been more impacted by extinction events and species invasions in historic times than the Hawaiian Islands, with as-yet unknown long-term cascading consequences to the ecosystem.

[54]In a press release, McNutt introduced a lecture by David Blehert, a USGS research scientist, speaking on white nose syndrome which may afflict six species of North American bats and may have "far-reaching ecological consequences":[55] ...they are in a race against time to find a way to manage this scourge before it is too late for these under-appreciated little mammals.

[55]McNutt commented on work by lead researcher Carol Meteyer and others from the USGS National Wildlife Health Center and the National Institutes of Health in November 2012: ...The potential discovery of IRIS in bats infected with white-nose syndrome is incredibly significant in terms of understanding both the reasons for bat mortality and basic immune response.

[56]McNutt spoke on a panel of leaders of US agencies (OSTP, NSF, NIH, DOE, DOD, DARPA and USGS) who rolled out the Obama administration's "Big Data Research and Development Initiative.

[62] Bloomberg News reported that during her testimony in March 2012, McNutt told the United States House Committee on Natural Resources that "less than 1 percent of wells drilled to dispose of the water after fracking causes 'induced seismicity'.

[63]United Press International reported in March 2012 that USGS has developed a tool that can map grasslands using remote sensing data from satellites.

McNutt said in a statement that the study: takes some of the guesswork out of deciding whether it could be feasible to raise a potentially high value crop for biofuels on America's grasslands.

[65] On October 18, 2012, McNutt, Bill Leith of USGS and Michael Mahoney of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) continued earthquake practice at the ShakeOut at the Langston Hughes Middle School in Reston, Virginia.

Finally, because the pipeline is the very least expensive mode of transport, she found a potential revenue stream in the money saved by the pipeline which she thinks should be used to fund renewable energy in the U.S.[74][75] Several U.S. agencies including the Central Intelligence Agency requested that the U.S. government study climate engineering and so the committee that McNutt chairs was born of the National Academy of Sciences.

[76] Ken Caldeira, who also sits on the committee, and David Keith are eager to try out ideas, in part spurred by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory funded by Bill Gates who is an enthusiast of climate engineering research.

Li answered questions from McNutt about space exploration, China's scientific cooperation with other developing countries, climate change, education, and environmental protection.

Citing "she tricked me" and the "trans panic defense" sometimes used by perpetrators, The Washington Post noted that transgender people are 30 percent more likely than others to be the victims of violence.

"[82] McNutt apologized on Twitter and in Science for "any discomfort that this cover may have caused anyone" and gave her:[84][85] [P]romise that we will strive to do much better in the future to be sensitive to all groups and not assume that context and intent will speak for themselves.

[83]The cover (and unfortunate response from the former editor of ScienceCareers) and two other columns provoked Aradhna Tripati, Jennifer Glass, Lenny Teytelman, and 600 other scientists to send a letter in 2015 to Science accusing the journal of perpetuating sexist stereotypes.

McNutt published a formal apology in July 2015, and said that she thought Science should start an advisory board made up of young scientists who might be in tune with the issues.

[87] In June 2014, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) together with Nature Publishing Group and Science held a workshop on the reproducibility and rigor of research findings.

[89] In January 2015, the Pew Research Center published a poll representing the public and a sample of scientists connected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

[90] On the occasion of Pew's publication, writer Joel Achenbach asked McNutt for her input on a National Geographic feature article, "Why Do Many Reasonable People Doubt Science?".