2016 Annual Meeting Report
12-16-2016
Writer(s): Pete Kissinger, Professor if Chemistry, Purdue Chapter President
The Purdue Chapter has been required to participate in the meeting every third year. Our time came up and I represented our chapter as an official voting delegate in Atlanta this November. It was my first experience with the national meeting. I found it interesting, especially the opportunity to interact with other chapters from around the country. This was a year for amending a number of changes in the governance documents for Sigma Xi following lively debate.
Two of the many changes are most worth noting. We will add the word Honor before Society in the description of our purpose. This has long been the case, but not explicitly stated. A second change discards the requirement for an annual meeting format and permits a national congress every two years. This change maintains the notion that a chapter in good standing would send a delegate, but now every other meeting, or once in four years rather than three. I supported both of these changes.
There were lively discussions among chapters, often related to local activities to serve the membership. A number of chapters hold Science Café events, for example. Two of these were held as a demonstration the first evening of the meeting. Poster contests are popular as are distinguished lectureships. The meeting included sessions on diversity in science/engineering, entrepreneurship programs on campuses, and suggestions on communicating science to the public. A very nice poster session was held with undergraduates and graduate students. I enjoyed participating as a judge. These students were sponsored by various chapters whose institutions were able to support expenses for the students. THAT impressed me.
The following major society awards were announced at the meeting and accompanied by interesting lectures with tasty meals. The winners were saluted as follows:
The Inaugural Gold Key Award to Norman R. Augustine. He is the retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation. He also served as undersecretary of the Army and had a faculty affiliation in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton, his alma mater. He has received the National Medal of Technology.
The official citation reads:
The Gold Key Award is presented to a member who has made extraordinary contributions to his or her profession and has fostered critical innovations to enhance the health of the research enterprise, to cultivate integrity in research, or to promote the public understanding of science for the purpose of improving the human condition.
Mr. Augustine, a member since 1958, presented a keynote lecture at the Annual Meeting. From aerospace engineering and executive leadership at Lockheed Martin, through sterling service to our country's defense, and inspired leadership in STEM education and other issues of critical national importance, he exemplifies the meaning of the word "researcher."
Jan D. Achenbach was the recipient of the 2016 Sigma Xi William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement.
He was born in the Netherlands and received a PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University in 1962. He made groundbreaking contributions to research on waves and vibrations in solid propellants, dynamic behavior of composite materials, dynamic effects on fracture, and applied ultrasonic methods for the measurement of elastic properties of thin films by acoustic microscopy, as well as for the detection of fatigue cracks and corrosion in aircraft, and recently for probabilistic methods of structural health monitoring.
With regard to practical applications, Achenbach was the leader of a team that developed an effective ultrasonic technique that reduced the inspection time for stress-corrosion cracks in the wing box of the DC-9. He was awarded the 1997 Model of Excellence Award by McDonnell-Douglas Aerospace.
He is the author of Wave Motion in Elastic Solids (Elsevier Science, 1973), and Reciprocity in Elastodynamics (Cambridge University Press, 2003), as well as three other books and numerous papers in technical journals. Some 60 PhD dissertations have been completed under his supervision. In 1993, he was elected to the Chicago Tribune All-Professor Team for his teaching and mentoring.
Jan is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was awarded the 2003 National Medal of Technology and the 2005 National Medal of Science.
Paul Sanberg was the recipient of the 2016 Sigma Xi John P. McGovern Science and Society Award.
Sanberg is senior vice president for Research, Innovation & Economic Development, Distinguished University Professor, and executive director of the Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair at the University of South Florida, in Tampa. His work has been instrumental in translating new pharmaceutical and cellular therapeutics to clinical trials and commercialization for Tourette syndrome, stroke, ALS, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, and Parkinson’s disease, and he has significant biotech and pharmaceutical industry experience in these areas.
A Florida native, Sanberg trained in Canada at York University and the University of British Columbia, as well as at the Australian National University and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and held faculty appointments at the University of Cincinnati and Brown University, among others. He is an inventor on 42 U.S. and 70 foreign patents and has served on numerous scientific advisory boards for health-related foundations and companies. He is the author of more than 600 scientific articles and 14 books.
Paul is editor-in-chief of Technology and Innovation and serves on editorial boards for more than 30 scientific journals. Sanberg is president and a Charter Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, chair of the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame Advisory Board, and has served as president of a number of professional societies, including the American Society for Neural Transplantation and Repair, the Cell Transplant Society, and International Behavioral Neuroscience Society.
He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the Royal Societies of Chemistry, Public Health and Medicine, and an AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassador. He also serves on the nomination evaluation committee of the United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation with the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Tiago H. Falk was the recipient of the 2016 Young Investigator Award. He is an associate professor at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique, (INRS-EMT) in Montreal, Quebec, where he directs the Multimedia/Multimodal Signal Analysis and Enhancement (MuSAE) Lab. His interdisciplinary work lies at the crossroads of biomedical engineering and multimedia communications and explores innovative ways of using one domain to advance the other.
Falk developed technologies include: human–machine interfaces that are aware of their user's mental/affective states; hearing aids that adapt to the surrounding noisy environment; video streaming services that are aware of the user's perceived quality, and thus adapt to maximize enjoyment; assistive devices for severely impaired individuals, thus allowing them to communicate with loved ones; smartphone applications that can remotely monitor a patient's depression state, help diagnose the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, or monitor voice therapy outcomes for stroke survivors; and brain-controlled robots that help treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorders or post-traumatic stress disorders.
Falk's work has been documented in over 170 papers in top-tiered journals, conferences, and book chapters, and has engendered numerous awards, most recently the Early Career Achievement Award (2015) from the Canadian Medical and Biological Engineering Society and the Bell Outstanding Achievement Award (2015) for mental health technologies.
Akhlesh Lakhtakia was the recipient of Sigma Xi's 2016 Walston Chubb Award for Innovation. He was born in Lucknow, India, and obtained a Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City in 1981 and 1983, respectively. He went on to earn a Doctor of Science in Electronics Engineering from the Banaras Hindu University in 2006. In 1983, he joined the faculty of the Pennsylvania State University, where he is currently the Charles Godfrey Binder Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics.
His current research interests lie in the electromagnetics of complex materials including chiral and bianisotropic materials, sculptured thin films, chiral nanotubes, nanoengineered metamaterials, surface multiplasmonics, bioreplication, bone nano-refacing, and forensic science. His research accomplishments have been discussed on CNN and in a NOVA movie.
Dr. Lakhtakia has published more than 800 journal articles; has contributed 27 chapters to research books and encyclopedias; has edited, co-edited, authored or co-authored 18 books and 17 conference proceedings; and was the first editor-in-chief (2007-2013) of the online Journal of Nanophotonics.
Dr. Lakhtakia is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, SPIE (1996), the UK Institute of Physics, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, and the IEEE.
Cristina Gouin-Paul was the 2016 recipient of Sigma Xi’s Evan Ferguson Award for Service to the Society. She is the citrus quarantine greenhouse and laboratory support scientist for the United States Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Maryland, a position she has held for more than 19 years. She has both an M.S. and B.S. from University of Maryland in horticultural research and grew up doing research with her father, Dr. Francis Gouin of the Sigma Xi University of Maryland Chapter. She was indoctrinated into Sigma Xi in 1999 as an associate member and was elected vice president of the District of Columbia Chapter. In 2002, she was elected president of the chapter and has remained president ever since. She has organized or helped to organized two to three traditional chapter dinner lectures each year. The chapter co-sponsors monthly Café Scientifiques, along with the Rockville Science Center and Rockville Science Consortium. In conjunction with the University of Maryland and Tidewater chapters, she helped to organize the first annual graduate and undergraduate Sigma Xi poster colloquium. She also helped to lead her chapter out of the proverbial box (restaurant) and organize hikes and tours of local points of interest that have been well received and attended. She has been also been involved in chapter revitalization. She is also the director of the Mid-Atlantic Region and chair of the Society’s Committee on Qualifications and Membership. “If there is ever a job or project that involves Sigma Xi, I do not hesitate to volunteer and put every ounce of effort I have into it,” she said.
Overall, the conference at the Atlanta Hyatt was worthwhile. I picked up some useful tips and made new friends for the Purdue Chapter while selling our graduate programs to some very sharp candidates.