PROGRAM COMMITTEE

The following people are leading the program for the 2019 Annual Meeting and Student Research Conference. 

Geri Richmond

richmond@uoregon.edu 
Committee Chair
Affiliation: University of Oregon

Geraldine (Geri) Richmond is Sigma Xi president and the Presidential Chair in Science and professor of chemistry at the University of Oregon where she has been since 1985. Her research examines the chemistry and physics that occurs at complex surfaces that have relevance to important problems in energy production, environmental remediation, and atmospheric chemistry. She received the National Medal of Science in 2016 and she is a member of the National Science Board.

Alli Antar 

alliantar@hotmail.com
Affiliation: Baylor College of Medicine

Alli Antar is an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and principal investigator of a U.S. Department of Agriculture-funded lab conducting biomedical research, with a focus on obesity and metabolism. Antar enjoys mentoring BCM SMART summer students and post-baccalaureate students interested in careers in STEM and medicine. Antar is the associate director of Sigma Xi's Southwest Region and vice president of the Rice University–Texas Medical Center Sigma Xi Chapter. 

Andrew Howard

howard@iit.edu
Affiliation: Illinois Institute of Technology

William J. Karpus

william.karpus@wisc.edu or amy.bergholz@wisc.edu
Affiliation: University of Wisconsin–Madison 

William J. Karpus is a professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and dean of the university’s Graduate School. He has been studying the role of chemokines in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis as a model for multiple sclerosis (MS) and has been using rat and mouse models of MS to understand demyelinating disease pathogenesis. He previously served as the contact officer for the University of Wisconsin Sigma Xi Chapter. 

Mike Madden

mmadden@email.unc.edu
Affiliation: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Jennifer Mihalick

mihalick@uwosh.edu
Affiliation: University of Wisconsin Oshkosh

Emma Perry

eperry@unity.edu
Affiliation: Unity College

Emma Perry is a professor of marine biology at Unity College in Maine. Perry was born and educated through her undergraduate degree in zoology in Britain before immigrating to the United States for her PhD in biology in 1990. She has been involved in Unity College’s governance at many levels, such as designing and creating successful undergraduate majors including the marine biology major. She uses tardigrades to teach students how to think, how to question like a scientist, and then how to address the questions they pose. Perry is the chair of the Sigma Xi Committee on Qualifications and Membership, the Membership-at-Large associate director, and former chair and current member of the Committee on Grants in Aid of Research. 

Deepshikha Shukla

DShukla@rockford.edu
Affiliation: Rockford University

Deepshikha Shukla is an associate professor of physics at Rockford University in Illinois. When not teaching she can be found doing research in theoretical physics or engaged in STEM outreach programs. She volunteers for various programs such as Science Olympiad and Regional Science Fairs. She earned her PhD in physics from Ohio University and was awarded the 2008 American Physics Society’s Division of Nuclear Physics dissertation award. She is the vice president and secretary of the Rockford University Sigma Xi Chapter. 

Allen Taflove

taflove@ece.northwestern.edu
Affiliation: Northwestern University

SIGMA XI STAFF

Eman Ghanem

eghanem@sigmaxi.org
Staff Liaison
Affiliation: Sigma Xi 

Eman Ghanem is the director of Membership, Chapters, and Programs at Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society. Prior to Sigma Xi, she was the co-director of Student and External Relations for the Freshman Research Initiative at The University of Texas–Austin, where she also served as the research educator for the Supramolecular Sensors Stream. Ghanem holds a PhD in biochemistry from Texas A&M University. 

Jamie L. Vernon