2000 Assembly of Delegates
Nominees for President
November 10-12, 2000, Albuquerque, New Mexico
In conjunction with the Sigma Xi Forum, November 9-10, 2000

Jared Leigh Cohon
President, Carnegie Mellon University

Jared Cohon became Carnegie Mellon University's eighth president on July 1, 1997, after 25 years in faculty and administrative positions at Yale University and Johns Hopkins University.

At Yale, Cohon served from 1992 to 1997 as dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, the nation's oldest school of forestry and natural resource management. He led the school in the creation and implementation of a strategic plan to build the faculty and to develop collaboration with other Yale schools.

Cohon started his academic career at Johns Hopkins, where he was on the faculty of the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering. He rose to full professor in eight years, when he was also named Assistant Dean of Engineering and then Associate Dean. Cohon was appointed as the first Vice Provost for Research of Johns Hopkins. In that position, from 1986 to 1992, he led the university's efforts to promote interdisciplinary research, technology commercial-ization and regional economic development.

Cohon's research and teaching have focussed on environmental and natural resources management, especially the development and application of mathematical models to support decision-making. His most influential work has been in the development of multiple criteria decision-making techniques and their use for large-scale water resources planning, energy facility siting and nuclear waste management. He is the author of more than 80 technical publications and one book.

Cohon has been involved in national and international policy issues for more than twenty years. In 1977, he took a one-year leave of absence from his teaching position at Johns Hopkins to serve as the first Legislative Assistant for Energy and Environment to U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Since then, Cohon has chaired and served on several committees of the National Research Council. President Clinton appointed him in 1995 to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, which was created by Congress to evaluate on a continuing basis the Department of Energy's program for the disposal, storage and shipment of high-level nuclear waste. Cohon was appointed Chairman of the Board in January, 1997 and reappointed in July, 1999. He has been a consultant to the United Nations on water resource planning in India and to the World Bank on environmental research in China.

In addition to Sigma Xi, Cohon is a member of Tau Beta Pi, the National Engineering Honor Society. His research has been recognized with awards from the National Audubon Society and the American Association of Engineering Societies-a joint award-and the International Multiple Criteria Decision Making Society. He is Past President of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. He serves on the Boards of many non-profit organizations and two for-profit corporations.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1947, Cohon received a B.S. in civil engineering in 1969 from the University of Pennsylvania. He received a master's in 1972 and a Ph.D. in 1973, both in civil engineering, from MIT.

Candidate's Statement - Jared Cohon
Well, I can only conclude that few voters read these position statements. I just read my statement from last year. It was pretty good, but I lost the election!

In last year's statement I recounted the problems of the Sigma Xi chapter at Johns Hopkins, where I was until 1992. The experience there gave me a chance to focus attention on a major challenge for Sigma Xi: its relevance in the lives of today's faculty and scientific researchers.

At its founding a century ago, our society played a central role in the scientific life of many organizations. Over the last century-and even in the last 30 years-the scientific research enterprize has grown phenomenally, and the pace of life today has placed more demands on members' time and attention. As a result, Sigma Xi faces a challenge in maintaining its relevance to its members.

How relevant is the Sigma Xi chapter at your organization? To you personally? Can it work for you better than it does? What would you like Sigma Xi to be doing to support the chapter? What part should Sigma Xi take on the national or international stage in order to advance science and technology? I don't in any way want to suggest that the current organization is less than excellent. Indeed, Sigma Xi has had stellar leadership, and I think very highly of Peter Blair, whom I've known for a long time from his career in energy research. But, I'd like to know the answers to some of these questions, and I expect that the process of finding the answers would be healthy and constructive. Leading such an effort strikes me as a worthy way to spend a term as your President.

W. Franklin (Frank) Gilmore
Chancellor, Montana Tech of The University of Montana

Frank Gilmore is Chancellor and the 10th Campus CEO of Montana Tech, an institution started 100 years ago as the Montana School of Mines. Prior to coming to Montana Tech, Frank was the Executive Vice President and Vice President for Academic Affairs at West Virginia University Institute of Technology. For twenty-six years he was professor, chair, and research professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Mississippi.

A native of Mississippi, Frank Gilmore earned a B.S. in Chemistry at Virginia Military Institute and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After service in the Army, he spent a postdoctoral year with DeLos DeTar at the Institute of Molecular Biophysics at Florida State University. He also attended law classes at the University of Missouri at Kansas City while working for the Midwest Research Institute and later he attended the Institute of Educational Management at Harvard University.

As a graduate student at MIT, Frank was elected to full membership in Sigma Xi in 1960. He is a charter member of the University of Mississippi Chapter of Sigma Xi and served as President of that chapter on two occasions. He has served Sigma Xi as a Regional Director and a Director at Large and as a member of the Executive Committee, Finance Committee and Awards Committee. He is a lifetime member of Sigma Xi and currently a member of the Montana Tech of The University of Montana Chapter.

For the first twenty-six years of his academic career, Frank Gilmore was a teacher and mentor to undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral associates. His most innovative research was the statement of and the original validation of the concept of peptidomimetics. Another research area was concerned with organophosphorus chemistry and the use of organphorphorus compounds as biological agents. Another research topic involved modified amino acids, especially aminophosphonic acids and peptides containing aminophosphonic acids.

Dr. Gilmore currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Butte-Silver Bow United Way, the Board of Directors of the Butte Family YMCA, the Goldwater Scholarship Selection Committee, and the NAPLEX Steering Committee of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy.

Candidate's Statement - Frank Gilmore
The heart of Sigma Xi is the chapters and the strong chapter structure. The lifeline of Sigma Xi is the regions and the constituency groups. Therefore the health of Sigma Xi depends on keeping the chapters, regions and constituency groups strong. The constituency groups are new and their development as a component of governance of Sigma Xi will need to be nurtured and facilitated. The Sigma Xi Center is a new approach that brings scientists together to address current science policy issues.

If my premise is correct that the heart of Sigma Xi is the chapters, then a major responsibility of the national officers should be to continue to address chapter vitality and to find new ways to assist chapters in promoting research. The Sigma Xi annual forum addresses current issues in scientific research and science education. The chapters could enhance service to their members by using the materials from the annual forum for one or more programs during the year. For example during the next year each chapter could have one or more programs that use materials from New Ethical Challenges in Science and Technology, the topic for the 2000 forum. Probably the greatest challenge we face is competition for our time. Through our chapter structure, perhaps we should explore mechanisms to better manage out time and to make the research process more efficient.

In her personal statement last year, President Elect, Marye Anne Fox, emphasized the importance of the role Sigma Xi must play in the "war on technological illiteracy." This is an exciting but difficult role for Sigma Xi. As President Elect, I will work with President Fox to find new approaches to this long-term theme of Sigma Xi and then continue our initiatives during my term as President.

During my term on the Awards Committee, at the suggestion of several members of the Board of Directors, we initiated the Young Investigator Award. We need to find permanent funding for this award and to broaden it so that the regional awards have more significance.

In closing, I thank the membership of Sigma Xi for the opportunity I have had to serve our organization at the local, regional and national level for over forty years.

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