In April 2006, Plummer was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), among the highest honors for an American scientist. His election citation reads “for his development of novel instrumentation, especially for electron spectroscopy, and its use to illuminate new concepts in the surface physics of metals.”

Here Plummer is photographed with another physicist in April 2007 during the NAS induction festivities in Washington, D.C. Robert Berks' famous scuplture of Einstein sits on the grounds of the National Academy of Sciences.