U.S. White House · Public domain

May Berenbaum's research on the chemical interactions between plants and the insects that eat them helped illuminate why bees and other pollinators are vulnerable to environmental toxins, work with direct implications for beekeeping and pollinator conservation. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, she was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2014 and became editor-in-chief of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2019.