Board of Directors
The ACS Board of Directors, the Society's chief governing body, is chartered to "have, hold, and administer all the property, funds, and affairs of the Society." The Board meets quarterly and at such other meetings as may be necessary or duly called. The regular quarterly meetings of the Board are held within the first seven days of June and December, at each spring ACS meeting, and at each annual ACS (fall) meeting of the Society. The Board is made up of 16 members:
- Six District Directors, elected by the membership of the region from which they are to serve;
- Five Directors-at-Large, elected by Councilors;
- One International District Director, elected by the membership located outside of US/Canada Districts
- The ACS President, President-Elect and Immediate Past President;
- The Chief Executive Officer of the Society
Rigoberto Hernandez
President
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Dr. Rigoberto Hernandez is the Gompf Family Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University since 2016, and the Director of the Open Chemistry Collaborative in Diversity Equity (OXIDE). He is also a Professor in the Departments of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Materials Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He was born in Güines, La Habana, Cuba and is a U.S. Citizen by birthright. He holds a B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering and Mathematics from Princeton University (1989), and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley (1993). He has published over 190 articles in theoretical and computational chemistry and discipline-based diversity research in chemistry. He has been a member of the American Chemical Society since 1992.
Christina (Chris) Bodurow
President-Elect
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Dr. Christina (Chris) Bodurow received her Bachelors of Arts from Kalamazoo College, and her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Princeton University. Chris is currently Senior Vice President of Project Management at the Indiana Biosciences Research Institute. Chris’ prior roles include Deputy Director of the AVIDD/SyneRx NIH/NIAID grant at the Stanford School of Medicine, global Vice-President of Regulatory Affairs at IQVIA, and Eli Lilly and Company-Lilly Research Laboratories, Retired, 1984-2017. Chris also serves in a number of professional and community volunteer roles, including on the Board of Directors of the American Chemical Society, the Board of Directors of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and the Board of Trustees of Kalamazoo College. She has been a member of the American Chemical Society since 1980.
Dorothy J. Phillips
Immediate Past President
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Dorothy J. Phillips retired from Waters Corporation in 2013 as Director, Strategic Marketing. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University in 1967 and her Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati in 1974. She began her forty-year industrial career at Dow Chemical Company and later joined the Waters Corporation. She is a Fellow of the ACS. She has been a member of the American Chemical Society since 1973.
Wayne E. Jones Jr.
Chair of the Board of Directors, and Director-At-Large
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Wayne E. Jones Jr. has served as a chemistry faculty member and researcher for 35 years, recently retiring from his position as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of New Hampshire. He earned a B.S. from St. Michael’s College in 1987 and a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1991. He has been a member of ACS since 1989.
Albert G. Horvath
Chief Executive Officer
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Al Horvath became the Chief Executive Officer of the American Chemical Society on January 1, 2023. He served as the ACS Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer since February 2019. Prior to joining ACS, he served as Chief Operating Officer and Under Secretary for Finance and Administration at the Smithsonian Institution. In that role, he was responsible for financial, business and administrative activities of the largest museum, research and educational complex in the world. Prior to joining the Smithsonian, Mr. Horvath spent more than two decades working in senior administrative roles for some of the leading research universities in the country including Penn State, Columbia University, California Institute of Technology, New York University, and Carnegie Mellon University. He began his career at Mellon Bank in his hometown of Pittsburgh before moving into higher education. Mr. Horvath earned his master's degree in business administration at Duquesne University and his bachelor's degree in accounting at Penn State.
Katherine L. Lee
Director, District I
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Katherine L. Lee is an organic and medicinal chemist. She earned a BS in Chemistry, summa cum laude, from Yale University and a PhD in organic chemistry at MIT before completing a postdoc at the University of Texas at Austin and then practicing medicinal chemistry in the pharmaceutical industry. Katherine is an expert in drug discovery, including structure-based and fragment-based drug design; a strategic and scientific advisor on small and large molecule programs; and a leader in portfolio strategy and business operations, most recently at Pfizer. She has been a member of the American Chemical Society since 1992.
Kimberly Agnew-Heard
Director, District II
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Kimberly Agnew-Heard is Director of Regulatory Affairs at Altria Client Services. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Georgia State University, Master of Science degree in analytical chemistry from Louisiana State University, and Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Georgia State University. Kimberly previously worked at the FDA as a Senior Chemistry Reviewer and Boston Scientific as a Senior Chemist. She has been a member of the American Chemical Society since 1995.
Bonnie (Helen A.) Lawlor
Director, District III
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Bonnie Lawlor, retired, spent her entire career in STM publishing, beginning as a chemical indexer at the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI, now Clarivate) ultimately becoming Executive Vice President, Database Publishing (see: garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v15p280y1992-93.pdf). She later served as Senior Vice President/General Manager of ProQuest’s Library Division (1996-1998), and as Executive Director of the National Federation of Advanced Information Services (NFAIS 2002-2014). Lawlor earned a B.S. in Chemistry from Chestnut Hill College (Philadelphia), an M.S. in chemistry from St. Joseph’s University (Philadelphia), and an MBA from the Wharton School, (University of Pennsylvania). She has been an ACS member since 1972.
Lisa Houston
Director, District IV
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Lisa Houston retired in 2022 as Vice President of the Process Analytics segment after 23 years with PAC, LP. She received her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of North Texas in 1986. Lisa has been an active American Chemical Society volunteer at all levels including Local Section, Division, Regional Meeting and National since becoming a member in 1990.
Silvia S. Jurisson
Director, District V
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Silvia S. Jurisson is currently Professor Emerita of Chemistry at the University of Missouri (MU). She earned her B.S. in chemistry at the University of Delaware and her Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Cincinnati. She has 40+ years of experience in inorganic and radiochemistry. She spent 5 years at Squibb/Bristol-Myers-Squibb in their Radiopharmaceutical R & D Department before joining MU. Her research involved radiopharmaceutical chemistry, radioisotope production and separations, and radioenvironmental chemistry. She is a fellow of the ACS, the AAAS and the SRS, and is a member of the NWTRB. She has been an ACS member since 1982.
Jeanette M. Van Emon
Director, District VI
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Jeanette Van Emon is a former research chemist for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency where she developed immunochemical methods for exposure assessment studies. She received her bachelor’s degree in environmental science from the California State University, East Bay and her Ph.D. in Agricultural and Environmental Chemistry with an emphasis in Environmental Toxicology from the University of California, Davis. She was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where she developed some of the first monoclonal antibodies for small molecules of environmental and human health concern. She has been an active volunteer for the American Chemical Society in many areas including Committee, Divisional, Local Section, Regional and National meetings. She is a Fellow of the ACS and has been a member of the American Chemical Society since 1985.
David Wu
Director, International District
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David Wu is the Director of the Institute of Chemistry at Academia Sinica in Taiwan and a Joint Professor at National Taiwan University. He is Emeritus Professor at the Colorado School of Mines, where he served as Department Head and Associate Director of the Center for Hydrate Research. He earned his A.B. from Harvard, Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, was a Junior Fellow at Cambridge and postdoc at UCSB. An ACS member since 2000, he has been active in fostering international activities within the Society.
Malika Jeffries-EL
Director-At-Large
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Malika Jeffries-EL is a Professor of Chemistry and the Associate Dean of the Graduate School in Arts and Sciences Boston University. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Wellesley College, Master of Science degree and Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the George Washington University. She is a fellow of the American Chemical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry, an advocate for diversity, and dedicated volunteer that has served in several activities within the American Chemical Society. She has been a member of the American Chemical Society since 1996.
Natalie A. LaFranzo
Director-At-Large
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Natalie A. LaFranzo leads Oncology Lifecycle Management for lung cancer diagnostics at Natera. After earning her BS in Chemistry from Bradley University (2007) and PhD in chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis (2013), Natalie intentionally left the research bench to begin her career at the interface of science and business. She has held roles across all areas of commercialization for life science tools and diagnostics companies including Personalis, Cofactor Genomics, and Horizon Discovery. Prior to joining Natera, she served as the VP of Strategy at LINUS. She has been a member of the American Chemical Society since 2007.
Will E. Lynch
Director-At-Large
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Will Lynch is Chair of the Department of Biochemistry, Chemistry and Physics at Georgia Southern University. He earned his B.A. from Kalamazoo College in 1986 and his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from Wayne State University in 1991. He has been a member of the ACS since 1986.
Carolyn Ribes
Director-At-Large
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Carolyn Ribes is the Business Analytical Leader for Industrial Intermediates & Infrastructure at Dow Chemical. She received her B.S. in chemistry in 1983 from University at Buffalo, SUNY, and her Ph.D. in chemistry in 1989 from State University of New York at Buffalo. She joined Dow in 1989 and has worked in Louisiana, Texas, and Argentina and is currently located in Terneuzen, Netherlands. She has been a member of the American Chemical Society since 1982.
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