Peter Dorhout, Kansas State University VP, elected 2018 president of world’s largest scientific society

WASHINGTON, Nov. 3, 2016 — Peter K. Dorhout, Ph.D., has been elected as the 2018 president of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society. He will serve as president-elect in 2017 and immediate past-president in 2019. During this time, he will also serve as a member of the board of directors.

Dorhout, vice president for research at Kansas State University, earned his B.S. in chemistry at the University of Illinois and his Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin.

“I’m humbled and grateful for the support of the membership,” Dorhout says. “They have given me an opportunity and a tremendous responsibility to help lead this organization.”

Communicating with the membership is important to Dorhout, who plans to hold virtual town hall meetings on a regular basis. “There are a lot of talented ACS members that have given a lot of thought to our position in the world, and I want to open the doors to communicate with them.”

He lives in Manhattan, Kansas, with his wife, Carolyn. Their older daughter, Jacquelyn, is also an ACS member finishing her Ph.D. at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Their younger daughter, Kathryn, lives in Norfolk, Virginia, where she teaches anatomy and physiology at Tidewater Community College.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With nearly 157,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.