Current Members
The Board of Trustees consists of thirteen members. Annually, at its spring meeting, the Board of Trustees nominates at least four persons who are members of the Council, past members of the Selection and Scheduling Committee or past Chairs of a Conference as candidates for Trusteeship. In making such nominations, the Board gives due consideration to the desirability of the membership of the full Board representing on a continuing basis the various major geographic areas and disciplines of the scientific community. From this slate, within sixty days after the nomination, the Council elects two Trustees by mail ballot, for terms of six years each. Elected Trustees may be reselected for additional terms but are not eligible to serve for consecutive six year terms. Their terms begin upon the final adjournment of the meeting of the Board of Trustees next after August 1 of each year. In addition, the executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or such officer's delegate, serves as a Trustee.
Term:
November 2006-2012 Colin W. Taylor is Professor of Cellular Pharmacology at the University of Cambridge, UK. He received his BA, MA, PhD and ScD degrees from Cambridge, and after postdoctoral work in the USA, he returned to Cambridge, first to the Department of Zoology and then to a faculty position in the Department of Pharmacology, where he currently holds a Chair in Cellular Pharmacology. His research is concerned with understanding mechanisms of Ca
2+ signalling, with particular emphasis on the structural determinants of the behaviour of a ubiquitous intracellular Ca
2+ channel, the IP3 receptor. Much of his work draws extensively from other disciplines, including chemistry, mathematical modelling, and clinical sciences. In addition to chairing the Gordon Conference on Calcium Signaling (2005), he has served on the meetings committees of both the Biochemical and Pharmacological Societies in the UK, and on editorial boards of international biochemical and pharmacological journals. Taylor states, “The importance of GRCs in regularly bringing together researchers with cognate interests and encouraging them also to look outward to other disciplines is widely acknowledged. But their importance for enthusing graduate students and postdocs is perhaps less recognized. At no other meetings do posters receive so much attention and, at least in my experience, a well-organised GRC can invigorate young researchers. I am keen to strengthen further these opportunities to nurture the next generation of researchers”.
Marianne Bronner-Fraser (Vice Chair) Term:
November 2005-2011 Marianne Bronner-Fraser received her B.S. in Biophysics from Brown University and her Ph.D. in Biophysics from Johns Hopkins University in 1979. She joined the faculty at University of California, Irvine, in 1980 and became a Full Professor in 1990 as well as co-director of the Developmental Biology Center. In 1996, she moved to the Division of Biology at Caltech where she is currently the Albert Billings Ruddock Professor of Biology. From 2001 to 2003, she was Chair of the Faculty at Caltech. She serves as an editor for many journals including
Developmental Biology,
Journal of Cell Biology and
Molecular Biology of the Cell, and has served on many scientific advisory boards (e.g. March of Dimes, Searle and Muscular Dystrophy Association). Bronner-Fraser's research centers on the early formation of the nervous system in vertebrate embryos. Her laboratory focuses on the origin of neural crest cells in a developmental and evolutionary context. The aim is to unravel the molecular and cellular signals by which neural crest cells form using a combination of embryological, molecular and genomic approaches. Bronner-Fraser has chaired the Developmental Biology and the Developmental Neurobiology Gordon Conferences and is a frequent attendant.
Paul Anderson (Past Chair) Term:
November 2004-2010 Paul Anderson is an independent consultant for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries after having served as a research Vice President for Merck, Dupont-Merck and Dupont. He received his B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of Vermont and his Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry from the University of New Hampshire. He also has received honorary doctorates from these Universities. After postdoctoral work as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University he joined Merck Research Laboratories in 1964. For his contributions to drug discovery, Dr. Anderson has received the E.B. Herschberg Award and the Industrial Chemistry Award from the American Chemical Society. For his contributions to applied science and service to the scientific community, he received the Perkin Medal from the Society of Chemical Industry (2002) and the Award for Chemistry in Service to Society from the US National Academy of Sciences (2003). He is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Society of Sigma Xi. Dr Anderson has served on the Council of the NIH Institute of General Medical Sciences and as President of the American Chemical Society (1997). He has chaired the Medicinal Chemistry Division of ACS, the Gordon Conference on Medicinal Chemistry and the NIH Study Section on Natural Products and Bioorganic Chemistry. He has just completed a term on the Gordon Conferences S&S Committee.
Term:
November 2007-2013 Paul Barbara is the Richard J.V. Johnson Welch Chair in Chemistry and the Director of the Center for Nano- and Molecular Science and Technology at the University of Texas at Austin. He received a B.A. degree in Chemistry from Hofstra University in 1974 and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Brown University in 1978. From 1978 to 1980 he carried out postdoctoral work at Bell Laboratories. He joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota in 1980, achieving the rank of full professor in 1990. In 1995 he was named 3M-Alumni Distinguished Professor of Chemistry. He moved to the University of Texas in 1998. His research interests include single molecule spectroscopy, protein/nucleic acid interactions, organic nano-structured materials, ultrafast chemical reaction dynamics in solution, and photochemistry. He has chaired both the Electronic Process in Organic Materials Gordon Conference and the Radiation Chemistry Gordon Conference, and has participated in over 30 Gordon Conferences. He is currently a Senior Editor of Accounts of Chemical Research, and a Past Chair of the Division of Physical Chemistry of the American Chemical Society. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999, a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1993, a Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science in 2004 and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2006. Other awards include an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (1983) and a Presidential Young Investigator award (1984) and a NSF Creativity Award in 1998. Barbara states, "Gordon Research Conferences, through its unique traditions,
e.g. 'off the record' discussions, have had an enormous impact on the culture of science and the course of scientific discovery. In order to sustain it impact, the GRC should strive to increase participation among the growing numbers of non-US scientists and among young investigators and students."
Charles M. Deber Term:
November 2009-2015 Charles M. Deber is a Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto, and a Senior Scientist in the Division of Molecular Structure and Function of the Research Institute at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. He received his B.S. from Brooklyn Poly (working with Murray Goodman); his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from MIT (Arthur Cope); and was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School (Elkan Blout) and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Enzyme Institute (Henry Lardy). Deber was elected in 2001 as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (the Canadian Academy of Sciences). His community service includes the American Peptide Society (President 1991-93, Board Member 1997-2003, 2009-); Editorial Board membership on several journals, including Editor-in-Chief of
Biopolymers: Peptide Science (1997-2004); and study section memberships, including as Chair of the Biochemistry & Molecular Biology grants committee of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. He was recognized by the American Peptide Society with the Vincent du Vigneaud Award in 2000 for Outstanding Career Achievements in Peptide Research, and the Murray Goodman Scientific Excellence and Mentorship Award in 2009. At the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine, he received the W.T. Aikins Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching. Deber has attended over 25 Gordon Research Conferences, and has served as Co-Chair of the Chemistry and Biology of Peptides Conference. His research utilizes natural and
de novo designed hydrophobic peptides and proteins, and the application of spectroscopic techniques, molecular modeling, and bioinformatics, to investigate the interactions and structures of peptides and proteins within membranes, and how membrane-embedded mutations underlie protein misfolding diseases. Deber states, "I value the intellectual excitement that new scientists experience upon attending their first Gordon Conference. It is important to nurture this spirit by maintaining a good balance of senior and early-in-career speakers at each Conference, and to ensure that there is room for new GRCs that reflect contemporary topics and today’s transdisciplinary research flavor."
Edward A. Dennis Term:
November 2008-2014 Edward A. Dennis is Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and of Pharmacology in the School of Medicine at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD). He received his BA from Yale in 1963 and a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1967 and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School 2007-2009. At UCSD he has served as Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, as Chair of the Faculty Academic Senate, and on the Board of Overseers. He has also served as a Visiting Professor at Harvard Medical School, a Visiting Scientist at Brandeis University, and currently serves as an Adjunct Professor at The Scripps Research Institute. Dr. Dennis' career research focus has been on the mechanism of the enzyme phospholipase A2, signal transduction, and inflammation as well as fat/lipid metabolism and he has authored over 300 original research publications, 12 patents, and has edited 13 books. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Lipid Research and the Director of the LIPID MAPS Lipidomics Consortium. Dr. Dennis was named a Fellow of the AAAS in 1984 and received the "Avanti Award in Lipid Enzymology" from the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2000 and the the European Federation for Lipid Science and Technology "European Lipid Science Award" in 2007. Dr. Dennis serves on the Scientific Advisory Board and Board of Directors of both private and public companies. He also serves on the Council of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, as an Emeritus Trustee of the Keystone Symposia Board of Directors which he chaired from 1996-2004, and on the Board of Directors of the ResMed Foundation, Eicosanoid Research Foundation and La Jolla Playhouse. He has organized and chaired numerous scientific meetings in chemistry and biochemistry including the Gordon Research Conference on Lipid Metabolism and was elected to the Gordon Research Conference Site and Selection Committee which he served from 2000-2005. He is working to ensure that the Gordon Research Conferences continue to evolve as the premier informal small meeting venue for new science serving the entire international scientific community of academic, industrial, and governmental scientists including graduate and postdoctoral students with interests in physics, chemistry and the biological and life sciences and the interfaces between them.
Term:
November 2005-2011 Laura H. Greene, Swanlund Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, received degrees from Ohio State and her PhD from Cornell, then worked at Bell Laboratories and Bellcore. She researches experimental condensed matter physics focusing on strongly-correlated electron systems, primarily investigating the mechanisms of unconventional superconductivity by planar tunneling and point-contact electron spectroscopies, and develops new, novel materials and methods of materials microanalyses. She has served on numerous committees and boards, including the: Board of Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies of Science; Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics; Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee for the Department of Energy (DoE); Sloan Foundation Fellow Selection Committee; International Union of Pure and Applied Physicists; Committees for the American Physical Society (APS) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and the Editorial Board for the Institute of Physics (UK) Journal
Reports on the Progress in Physics. Greene is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the APS. She received the Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award from the APS, the E.O. Lawrence Award from the DoE and is a visiting scholar for Phi Beta Kappa. Over her career, Greene has co-authored ~150 publications and presented over 250 invited talks. Greene served on the Schedule and Selection Committee for GRC, 1999-2004, has been a regular participant at GRC's, once chaired and twice co-chaired the GRC on Condensed Matter Physics.
Magnus Hook Term:
November 2008-2014 Magnus Höök is Director of the Center for Extracellular Matrix Biology at the Institute of Biosciences and Technology (IBT), Texas A&M Health Science Center (TAMHSC) and Associate Director of the IBT. He holds the Neva and Wesley West Professorship and is a Regents Professor at TAMHSC. After receiving his B.S. in Biochemistry and his Ph.D. in Medical Chemistry from the University of Uppsala, Sweden, he joined the faculty at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden. Prior to accepting his current position, Dr. Höök served on the faculty at the University of Alabama, Birmingham in the Departments of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Cell Biology. His research interests focus on understanding the molecular pathogenesis of infections and inflammatory diseases and exploring the practical applications of discoveries made in these studies. He has published over 200 peer reviewed papers and trained more than 80 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Dr. Höök is a member of the Network on Antimicrobial Resistance in
Staphylococcus aureus (NARSA) project of the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and has recently been honored with the Office of Technology Commercialization's Patent and Innovation Award and the IBT Distinguished Service Award from Texas A&M Health Science Center. He has participated in over 30 Gordon Research Conferences, chaired the Proteoglycans GRC in 1994, and currently serves on the GRC Selection and Scheduling Committee.
Luisa Iruela-Arispe Term:
November 2007-2013 Luisa Iruela-Arispe is a cell and developmental biologist and Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She earned her Ph.D. degree from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil in 1989 and received postdoctoral training at the University of Washington in Seattle. She was appointed Assistant Professor at the Department of Pathology at Harvard Medical School in 1994 where she stayed for four years. In 1998, Iruela-Arispe joined the faculty of the Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at UCLA. Her research centers in understanding the molecular regulation of endothelial cell commitment and differentiation, patterning of the vasculature and homeostatic vascular function. This information has provided the basis to develop strategies to control vascular growth during disease, particularly in cancer. Iruela-Arispe is strongly committed to education. She is currently the Vice Chair for teaching in her department and provides instruction to both undergraduates and graduate students. She is actively involved in her field of research and has organized several meetings including two Gordon Conferences, one on Angiogenesis and a second on Vascular Biology. She is the Founder and Director of the Vascular Biology Training Program at UCLA and President of the North American Vascular Biology Organization (NAVBO). Iruela-Arispe states, "The spirit of the Gordon Conferences has always been to embrace open discussion of concepts at the forefront of science. In fact, these conferences have paved the direction of many fields. While this mission should be retained, it is important to ensure that the conferences stay 'in-tune' with current changes in sciences at large and that also recognize the particular needs of a specific area. Infusion of more interdisciplinary themes, flexibility of formats, and fostering interactions pre and post-conferences are some of the innovations that could be incorporated in the future."
Term:
November 2001-2020 Alan Leshner has been Chief Executive Officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Executive Publisher of the journal Science since December 2001. AAAS (triple A-S) was founded in 1848 and is the world's largest, multi-disciplinary scientific and engineering society.
Before coming to AAAS, Dr. Leshner was Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). Before becoming Director of NIDA, Dr. Leshner had been the Deputy Director and Acting Director of the National Institute of Mental Health. He went to NIMH from the National Science Foundation (NSF), where he held a variety of senior positions, focusing on basic research in the biological, behavioral and social sciences, science policy and science education. Dr. Leshner went to NSF after 10 years at Bucknell University, where he was Professor of Psychology.
Dr. Leshner received an undergraduate degree in psychology from Franklin and Marshall College, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physiological psychology from Rutgers University. He also holds honorary Doctor of Science degrees from Franklin and Marshall College and the Pavlov Medical University in St. Petersburg, Russia. Dr. Leshner is an elected fellow of AAAS, the National Academy of Public Administration, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and many other professional societies. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science. The U.S. President appointed Dr. Leshner to the National Science Board in 2004, he sits on the Advisory Committee to the Director of NIH, and he represents AAAS on the U.S. Commission for UNESCO.
William A. Lester, Jr. Term:
November 2006-2012 William A. Lester, Jr. is Professor of Chemistry, UC, Berkeley and Faculty Senior
Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory He earned BS and MS degrees from the University of Chicago, and a PhD from The Catholic U. of America, all in chemistry. After postdoctoral work at the Theoretical Chemistry Institute, U. Wisconsin-Madison, he was appointed Assistant Director of the Institute and Lecturer in the UWM Chemistry Department. In 1968 he joined the IBM Research Division, served on the Technical Planning staff of the Research Division and as a research group manager. In 1978 he was selected to head the National Resource for Computation in Chemistry, housed at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, and was concurrently an Associate Director of the Laboratory. In 1981 he was appointed Professor of Chemistry and in 1991-95 Associate Dean, College of Chemistry, UCB. In 1995-96 he served on the NSF Director's staff as Senior Fellow for Science & Engineering and Assistant to the Director for Human Resource Development. Lester's research interests are in electronic structure and collision dynamics of atomic and molecular systems. He has published over 200 scientific articles and a book, and is editor or co-editor of four other volumes. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the California Academy of Sciences, and a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science. He has served on the Boards of AAAS and Sigma Xi. Lester has participated in five different GRCs but has been principally involved with Atomic & Molecular Interactions, which he chaired in 1978. He has served on the GRC Council and is completing a term on the GRC Site and Selection Committee. He is Chair of the GRC Blue Ribbon Committee on Diversity. Lester states "The Gordon Research Conferences have done a superb job in evolving the subject areas for conferences as scientific areas have changed through the years. It must continue to do so in a period of rapid change and growth of scientific areas. At the same time the Gordon Conferences must foster an environment of inclusiveness that welcomes the participation of women and persons from groups that are underrepresented in the sciences."
Term:
November 2004-2010 Michael Natan is President of Oxonica, Inc., one of the leading European nanomaterials groups with products already launched into international markets. He received a B.S. in Chemistry from Yale University (1981), and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1986), followed by postdoctoral work at Northwestern University. He then joined the chemistry department of The Pennsylvania State University, where, after receiving Beckman Young Investigator and Sloan Fellowship Awards, he rose to the rank of Professor. In 1999, he moved to SurroMed as its Chief Technical Officer. His scientific and commercial interests encompass bioanalytical measurement science/technology and nanotechnology. He is a member of NIH's Enabling Bioanalytical and Biophysical Technologies study section, and has participated in several different Gordon Conferences, most recently as Vice-Chair (2002) and Chair (2004) of Bioanalytical Sensors.
Peter J. Stang Term:
November 2009-2015 Peter J. Stang is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and past Dean of the College of Science at the University of Utah. He received his B.S. in Chemistry at DePaul University and his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. After postdoctoral research at Princeton University, he joined the University of Utah in 1969. His research interests range from physical-organic chemistry to supramolecular chemistry and self-assembly. He is a pioneer and leader in the area of metal-directed coordination driven self-assembly. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science, and a Foreign Member of the Chinese and Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He has published over 450 scientific articles and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the American Chemical Society’s James Flack Norris and the George A. Olah Awards, as well as the 2006 Linus Pauling Medal. Since 2002 he is the Editor of
The Journal of the American Chemical Society, having served as an Associate Editor since 1982. Stang states "Having participated in over two dozen Gordon Conferences and having served on the GRC Scheduling & Selection Committee, it is evident that future conferences should be more interdisciplinary and more females and young investigators should be encouraged to participate; the introduction of the Gordon Research Seminar program has been hailed as an excellent venue for such interactions and should continue to be expanded to those GRC communities interested in attracting the next generation of top-notch scientists to their communities."