CSSP Announces New Board Members for 2022

The Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP) is pleased to announce the results of its election of new Board members which was held during the Winter CSSP Leadership Workshop, December 4-6, 2021.

Donna J. Nelson, Ph.D., a pro­fessor of organic chemistry at the University of Oklahoma, will fill the position of 2022 Chair-Elect. G. Warfield “Skip” Hobbs, the managing partner of Ammonite Resources, has been elected as a Member at Large.

Dr. Nelson has held several leadership positions in academia (such as Faculty Fellow in the OU Pro­vost’s Office) and in professional societies (such as 2016 Ameri­can Chemical Society President, focusing on and guided by communities in chemistry). Nelson served as science advisor to the AMC television show Breaking Bad.

Her research has focused on five primary topics, generally categorized in two areas, Scientific Research and America’s Scientific Readiness. Within Scientific Research, her topics have been on mechanistic patterns in alkene addition reac­tions and on Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube (SWCNT) functionalization and analysis. Under America’s Scientific Readiness, she focuses (1) on science education and impact­ing science by considering its communities (including class­room innovations and correcting organic chemistry textbook inaccuracies), (2) on ethnic and gender diversity (the Nelson Diversity Surveys) among highly ranked science departments of research universities, and (3) on improving the image and presentation of science and scientists to the public.

Nelson has written over 200 research-related publications and has given hundreds of invited presentations to national meetings of professional societies and organizations, universi­ties, and radio and TV programs. She has won many awards and honors, including the Guggenheim Award, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Edinburgh, ACS Fellow, NSF Special Creativi­ty Extension, National Organization for Women “Woman of Courage” Award, Ford Foundation Fellow, Fulbright Schol­arship, and NSF ADVANCE Leadership Award. She was named one of the “70 Most Inspirational Women Leaders Impacting the World” by Business.org in 2018 and among “These 12 Texas Women Made History” by UT Austin in 2021. More information is available at (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Nelson).

G. Warfield “Skip” Hobbs is a professional geologist with 50 years of global petroleum, geo­thermal and mineral exploration and development experience. He is the managing partner of Ammonite Resources, a geotechnical and natural resource business advisory firm based in New Canaan, Connecti­cut. Prior to founding Ammonite in 1982, Hobbs worked internationally as an exploration geologist for Texaco and Amerada Hess. Hobbs holds a B.Sc. degree in Geology from Yale College, and a M.Sc. degree in Petroleum Geology from the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, London. From 1982-1989 he was on the Board of Directors of the Sierra Madre Foundation for Geological Research, an organization formerly sponsored by Yale, Harvard and Cornell Universi­ties. Skip served as the American representative on the board of the Burgess Shale Geoscience Foundation in Field, British Columbia between 2002 and 2008. He was the elected Secretary (1993-1995) of the then 33,000 member American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) and was President of the AAPG Division of Professional Affairs in 2000-2001. Hobbs served from 2004-2012 on the Executive Commit­tee of the American Geological Institute (AGI), a federation of 51 geoscience professional societies representing over 250,000 members in every earth science discipline. He was AGI Pres­ident in 2010-2011. As President-Elect, then President and Past-President of AGI, Hobbs was a member of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents from 2009-2012, where he served as Co-Chair of the Committee on Energy and the Environment. Hobbs presently serves as an Alumni Mem­ber of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents and is the Chair of the CSSP Committee on Government & Public Policy. He is a registered professional geologist in the states of Texas and Pennsylvania. Skip is an external adviser to the Geosciences Department of the University of Connecticut. Hobbs is an Honorary Member of the American Associa­tion of Petroleum Geologists, and a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. In his spare time, he manages a family farm in Massachusetts where he raises organically grown vegetables, bees and grass-fed heritage beef cattle. He is the past-president of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station Associates, and a past-president of the New Canaan Nature Center. Skip writes and lectures frequently on energy, energy economics, sustainability, and climate policy. 

For 2022 Michael Grusak, Ph.D., assumes the role of CSSP Chair as Lisa Keefe, Ph.D. steps down from serving in that position in 2021 to assume the role of Past Chair.  The CSSP thanks Malcolm Butler, Ph.D., for his time on the CSSP Board, which comes to an end on December 31, 2021.

CSSP recognizes the following board members who will serve in 2022:

  • Michael Grusak – Chair, Crop Science Society of America; USDA, Agricultural Research Service
  • Lisa Keefe – Past Chair, American Crystallographic Association; Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute
  • Joseph Ferrara – Treasurer, American Crystallographic Association; Rigaku Americas Corp
  • Patricia Simmons – Secretary, American Association for the Advancement of Science
    National Science Teaching Association
  • Sharon Mosher – Alumni Representative, American Geosciences Institute; The University of Texas at Austin
  • Members at Large
    • Lucinda Johnson –Society for Freshwater Science; University of Minnesota-Duluth
    • John Downing –Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography;
      Minnesota Sea Grant
    • April Ulery –Soil Science Society of America; New Mexico State University
    • Jennifer Tank –Society for Freshwater Science; University of Notre Dame
    • Skip Hobbs – American Geosciences Institute; Ammonite Resources
  • Ex-Officio Members
    • Hon. Haskell Pitluck (Ret), Legal Advisor – American Academy of Forensic Sciences
    • Martin Apple, Director of R&D, President Emeritus American Institute of Chemists

CSSP is committed to advancing leadership in science and technology and to establishing policies and programs that will ensure a bright future for 21st century science. Founded in 1973, the society has served as a center for national science leadership development, a strong voice in support of science in the nation’s capital, and the premier forum for national science policy development through open, substantive exchanges on current issues encompassing the full spectrum of science, engineering, and mathematics. CSSP represents the breadth of science and engineering research disciplines through its member societies and federations. CSSP member societies are represented by their presidents, presidents-elect, and past-presidents with combined membership that has historically approached nearly a million scientists.

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