Carol Carter Named a 2025 Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors

Carol A. Carter, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology of the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, has been elected as a 2025 Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) - the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors.

The NAI Fellows Program was established to highlight academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. Election to NAI Fellow status is the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors.

According to the NAI, the 2025 class hold more than 5,300 U.S. patents and include recipients of the Nobel Prize, the National Medals of Science and Technology & Innovation, and members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, among others.

This year's 169 U.S. Fellows represent 127 universities, government agencies, and research institutions, across 40 U.S. states. The NAI Fellows program was founded in 2012 and has grown to include 2,253 distinguished researchers and innovators, who hold over 86,000 U.S. patents and 20,000 licensed technologies. Their innovations have generated an estimated $3.8 trillion in revenue and 1.4 million jobs.

Carter is an innovative scholar of remarkable breadth and depth. She is widely recognized as an early pioneer in HIV research and was recently elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Her work on the isolation and purification of recombinant forms of the viral encoded protease and viral capsid protein was critical for advancing understanding in the field. Her groundbreaking research identified an interaction between HIV-1 and host protein Tsg101 that is essential for budding of viral particles from infected cells, opening a new field of research in virology and cell biology.

Carter has received numerous prestigious honors for her pioneering work, including the David Derse Memorial Retrovirology Award, the Long Island Innovator of the Year Award, the Suffolk County NY Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission Public Service Award and the Stony Brook University Presidential Award for Promoting Diversity and Academic Excellence. She was designated a Pioneer in Molecular Biology by the Journal of Molecular Biology and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2024.

"Dr. Carter is not only an inventor of great vision but also an exceptional educator, entrepreneur and mentor whose work radiates outward into society in profoundly meaningful ways," said Iwao Ojima, president of the Stony Brook University Chapter of the National Academy of Inventors and SUNY Distinguished Professor of Chemistry. "She is precisely the kind of scholar-practitioner with exceptional achievements and future promise, who elevates the mission of the National Academy of Inventors."

Carter will be inducted at the NAI 15th annual meeting on June 1-4, 2026, in Los Angeles, California.