Gene P. Siegal

Present Position

Senior Scientist, UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Professor of Cell Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Joint Health Sciences
Professor of Surgery, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine

Chapter Affiliation

University of Alabama–Birmingham

Background Information

CV

Statement

Sigma Xi, the organization, has always held a special place in my heart since it was the first “Honor Society” to which I was elected. However, the organization and its members cannot afford itself the luxury of living divorced from the world we find ourselves in today. The founding principles of the Society are still as critically important today as they were a century ago, i.e. a multidisciplinary professional organization that is global in nature and has stood for diversity and for truth that is derived from objective and rigorous examination free from cultural and political bias. This is what the Society must call all its members to support. “Different by design” needs to be more than a slogan—it needs to stimulate our newest members and its eldest, those from industry, from government service and from academia. I see my role as standing with my colleagues in that pursuit while offering responsible oversight of the finances of the Society.

Relevant Experience with Budgeting and Financial Statements

I readily admit that I am a physician-scientist and not an accountant, bookkeeper or actuarial. However, over my professional lifetime I have overseen the budgets of many millions of dollars in extramural support to my laboratory and that of my colleagues without challenge or scandal. I had the opportunity to attend a certificate program offered by the Kenan-Flagler School of Business Administration at UNC-Chapel Hill where I learned how to read a financial statement and I served for 3 years as the Treasurer of my medical school class.  I also served a 4-year term as Secretary/Treasurer of the Intersociety Pathology Council, the umbrella organization for all the Pathology professional societies.  Additionally, for the last 10 years I’ve served as a Member of the Finance Committee of the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Endowment Fund for the International Skeletal Society.  Lastly, I served as the Interim Chair of the Department of Pathology at UAB until late last year. This Department and its Hospital laboratories generated nearly 1 billion dollars in clinical charges and with the help of an outstanding administrative team turned around the bottom line from a predicted loss to a significant contribution to margin for our non-profit operation.

Previous Experience with Sigma Xi Programs

I have been a member of Sigma Xi for more than 4 decades having been elected to membership as a young graduate student. I remained active on the local level while in Minnesota and Maryland but made a commitment to simultaneously “pay it forward” and “give back” when I joined the UNC-Chapel Hill faculty, eventually serving as the President of the Chapter and helped the national organization transfer its corporate headquarters to RTP from New England. Eventually, I moved to UAB and returned to my previous role as a minor player but now with the challenges facing science in general and Sigma Xi, in particular, it became clear to me that it is once again time to come forward to support this eminent society which was so important to my own success and sense of self worth and assure its stabilization and growth into this next century.