July 02, 2014

Sigma Xi's membership-at-large has elected Dr. Vijay C. Kowtha as their associate director. Voting concluded yesterday in the election between Kowtha and Dr. Tao Gong. Kowtha emphasized to voters his goal to promote student-member partnerships in order to attract young people to research.

"A concerted effort with mentoring as a central tenet will enable young minds in the ranks and will revitalize Sigma Xi," he said in his vision statement.

His term begins immediately and will run through June 30, 2016. 

As associate director, Kowtha will assist with the responsibilities for the membership-at-large constituency, which consists of all Sigma Xi members who are not affiliated with a chapter. He may attend, without a right to vote but with all other rights to participate, a meeting of the Board of Directors in place of the director for the membership-at-large. He may also conduct meetings for the constituency. 

Kowtha is an electronics engineer at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. He has held leadership roles at the Sigma Xi Naval Research Laboratory-Edison Chapter. He became a Sigma Xi member in 1999. 

More About Sigma Xi: Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society is the international honor society of science and engineering. One of the oldest and largest scientific organizations in the world, Sigma Xi has a distinguished history of service to science and society for more than a century. Scientists and engineers, whose research spans the disciplines of science and technology, comprise the membership of the Society. Sigma Xi chapters can be found at colleges and universities, government laboratories, and industry research centers around the world. More than 200 Noble Prize winners have been members. The Society is based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. www.sigmaxi.org. On Twitter: @SigmaXiSociety.