2003 Assembly of Delegates
Nominees for President
November 13-16, 2003
Hyatt Regency Los Angeles at Macy's Plaza
Los Angeles, California

Vera Alexander
Dean, School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences and Professor of Marine Science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks

Vera Alexander is the Dean of the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences and Professor of Marine Science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She was born in Budapest, Hungary, grew up in England and came to the United States in 1950, to enter the University of Wisconsin as a freshman. Originally planning to study chemistry, she became deeply interested in the biology of lakes, and received B.A. and M.S. degrees in zoology in 1955 and 1962 respectively. After a few years, which included time at the University of Kentucky and the University of Pittsburgh, she moved to the University of Alaska. A new Marine Science Institute had been started, and she was accepted as the first marine science graduate student. She received her PhD in marine science in 1965. She became a U.S. citizen in 1980.

Her research interests include the biological oceanography of high-latitude sea-ice impacted areas, with emphasis on ice biology, primary production and nitrogen dynamics, and high-latitude limnology. She was a pioneer in the use of nitrogen-15 in the detection and measurement of nitrogen fixation natural waters, ultimately extending the work to arctic and alpine tundra terrestrial systems as well. In this regard, she has worked in the Canadian high arctic and also in Lapland.

After a career on the faculty, she eventually became Director of the Institute of Marine Sciences, and then Dean of the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1987; she continues to hold a tenured position as Professor of Marine Science as well. The School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences is an unusual entity, with responsibilities for research in the ocean and freshwater sciences and fisheries as well as seafood science and technology, instruction at all levels from the baccalaureate to doctoral, and extension through the Marine Advisory Program. Faculty members are based at more than 10 distinct sites, separated by many hundreds of miles.

She is a member of numerous professional organizations, and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow of the Arctic Institute of North America, and also a Fellow of the Explorers Club. She became a member of Sigma Xi in 1974. She has served on the National Research Council's Ocean Sciences and Polar Research Boards, and has chaired the advisory Committee for the Ocean Sciences Division of the National Science Foundation. In 1999, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by Hokkaido University in Japan.

She currently serves on the United States Marine Mammal Commission, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Science Advisory Board, the International Scientific Steering Committee for the Census of Marine Life, the Steering Committee for the SEARCH (Study of Arctic Change) program, as well as Chairman of the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) and President of the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States.

Candidate's Statement - Vera Alexander
Sigma Xi is an organization with a clear and focused mission of supporting scientists and scientific research. I am convinced that it is the premier society in promoting and enhancing scientific careers at all levels, while also fostering science in the national and international spheres. It reflects the high standards of its leaders and members, while embracing young, promising scientists into its ranks. There can be no more important mission today than nurturing young scientists. The demands on scientific research and for scientific knowledge are increasing, and while this is good, the expectations also are often too optimistic. Science is viewed as a solution to pragmatic questions, and yet results are sometimes questioned when they do not support a political agenda. Scientific results must be able to withstand scrutiny and science must produce the understanding needed as a basis for action. It is disturbing, though, to find politicians trivializing scientific results because they do not support their particular agenda.

In my own field of marine science, scientists are wrestling with the definition of a politically dictated approach to fisheries management - that is, ecosystem-based management. A tremendous challenge is presented in designing and carrying out the extremely complex (and expensive) systems scientific research that is required to support this approach, and as a result in many cases the management actions are ecosystem-based in name only and not really supported by the results of scientific research. While scientific research has an enormous role to play in addressing such real and urgent problems of society, at the same time the opportunities for exploring the limits of knowledge have become vast. It is an exciting time, given the tools and techniques available for the most basic and fundamental research as well as for studying the oceans, atmosphere and space.

I am very interested in promoting an appreciation and love of science at all levels of education. A scientifically literate population is important not only because understanding will foster support for science, but also because such literacy is needed in support of effective government and policies. Similarly, international cooperation is critical in the modern world. As an oceanographer, I have faced the impossibility of unilaterally studying processes in a region where currents flow across national boundaries, and where marine animals migrate across as well. These two areas are already being addresses by Sigma Xi, and will be among my emphases, if elected President of Sigma Xi.

The Chapters of Sigma Xi must play the primary role in promoting scientific education and literacy. It is important that we continue to promote and support them. They are the backbone of the organization. The national incentives and programs also are critical In closing, I want to congratulate the Society for its high quality journal, the American Scientist. There is no other general scientific publication, which comes near to covering the range of topics with such high quality papers. It truly reflects the excellence of the organization. I would be proud to serve as President.

Lynn Margulis
Distinguished University Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

How do species come into being? What is the source of genetic variation in living organisms? How did early life evolve? Dr. Margulis proposed once unconventional answers to these questions. Her serial endosymbiosis theory (SET) states that mitochondria and chloroplasts originally evolved as bacteria and then merged with other cells in a symbiotic union. The cells of animals and plants evolved from ancient symbiotic associations that have successfully met the demands of life for over a billion years. Today Dr. Margulis' theory is routinely described in biology text books.

In her recent book, written with Dorion Sagan, Dr. Margulis challenges the assumptions scientists have made about the mechanisms of evolution. Acquiring Genomes: a theory of the origins of species provides evidence that new species arise by symbiotic merger of genomes rather than by random mutation, which Dr. Margulis asserts plays only a marginal role in the evolution of life. Their innovative ideas are derived from evidence, which is supported by the work of myriad scientist. Indeed, Margulis who has changed how we think about evolution maybe one of the few living scientists who has shifted a paradigm.

Her collaboration with James Lovelock on the Gaia Hypothesis is a natural result of her studies on symbiosis. "Gaia is more a point of view than a theory" says Margulis. "It is a manifestation of the organization of the planet." Life does not passively "adapt." "Rather, it actively, though unknowingly modifies its own environment to increase chances of its perpetuation." Thus the Gaia concept expresses the reality of Earth's interwoven, symbiotic, fabric of life and the impact of this living fabric on the planet's abiotic environment.

And how do Gaia and symbiosis relate to the study of humans in an evolutionary context? Dr. Margulis suggests that we humans are "walking communities of microbes." Although we are of course, complex large animals, we depend on microbes for our very existence. Protists and bacteria are part of who we are. They are the real protagonists, in the story of life. She writes, "the evolution of life is driven by tiny selves of which we are only half-conscious." Her research, like the microbes themselves has impact far beyond the microbial world.

Dr. Margulis earned a Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1965. She has been a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst since 1988. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences of the United States in 1983, and is a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has received Sigma Xi's Proctor Prize for Scientific Research, a 1999 National Medal of Science from President Clinton, and an Alexander von Humboldt Prize 2002. She works frequently in Spanish-speaking countries, especially Spain, where she has received two of her twelve honorary doctorate degrees.

Candidate's Statement - Lynn Margulis
"Science is the only news. Everything else is 'she said, he said'", one of my favorite dicta, is attributed to counterculture hero, Stewart Brand. Like our splendid organization, Sigma Xi and its responsible yet never-boring magazine American Scientist Brand supports science in ways far more important than any gift of money. As founder of two responsible publications: The Whole Earth Catalogue and the Whole Earth Review Brand and colleagues have brought important results of scientific research to thousands of interested nonspecialists. Even if only as magazine readers most of us cherish scientific description (especially when written comprehensibly). Research scientists, and therefore Sigma Xi members are even more grateful and critical: we value rigorous data collection, thoughtful analyses and accurate detail. We trust science and, to a greater extent than the public at large, we depend on its accuracy for our myriad judgments and opinions. More than other readers we researchers try to resist pressures of persuasion and innuendo. Our scientific documentation work sensitizes us to hype, half-truths and lies: advertisement disguised as news, careless analysis and the other daily assaults on our integrity dismay and often infuriates us. Research intrinsically requires authentic description of science itself by scientists.

But ponder this: What generates the crucial original scientific evidence?

The glory of Sigma Xi is its unambiguous dedication to its primary goal: to foster research. Any full member has demonstrated research achievement. It is simply not enough to have been elected to high office or performed diligent public service. Any associate member has shown potential to participate in the global research effort. It is not enough to have attended a prestigious summer program or an expensive college. Sigma Xi members are drawn from government labs, industrial research centers or their own homes. The criterion of importance is that they join fervently in research and practice science as a way of knowing. Sigma Xi members share the belief that science is a valid way of learning about the world.

To me science is not only a way of knowing but it is the best way to find out anything with confidence. To do science of any kind requires certain social interactions but science is not primarily "he said, she said". Rather it usually requires gentle inquiry of Nature herself. Scientists must be critical. To cajole Nature into yielding a new scientific finding the researcher often has to criticize authority. But to accomplish anything at all the criticism must be constructive. Although a scientist must think for herself she must also seek "companionship in zealous research".

Without the Sigma Xi Grants-in Aid scholarship program my former students would not have been able to dive in Bahamian caves or collect microbes at Yellowstone's lacustrine deep hot vents. Without Grants-in Aid several Master's theses would not have been written. Without the annual Sigma Xi dinners and initiation ceremonies certain research scientists, students and faculty on my campuses would never even have become acquainted. The policy to give small grants to many deserving research students is laudable. I believe it has improved how many young potential investigators describe the methods and significance of their research.

The Sigma Xi presidency appeals to me primarily as a means to further the fundamental priority of the organization: to foster the results of original scientific research and to communicate them. I would evaluate any potential action of the society on the basis of its relation to this goal. I see Sigma Xi as means to strengthen the voices of young honest scientists in today's despairing world. The magazine is a crucial, perhaps the most crucial activity of the society. In it important issues to be illuminated, should be debated. Among these I easily identify a few: The degradation of the environment correlated with human overpopulation and loss of non-human lives and the diminishment of cultural diversity (both plant and human). I see as a serious problem the proliferation of dangerous unstated assumptions in many scientific activities especially in the reconstruction of cosmic, evolutionary and climate history. I deplore the all-too-human tendency toward dichotomization and our knee-jerk responsiveness to symbols. The deprecation and misunderstanding of the importance of museums and their collections deserves far more discussion as does the education of both the young scientist and the student who will never become a scientist. Scientific publishing, so crucial to the research enterprise poses current problems: the domination of scientific journals by greedy publishers, the excessive control of the marketplace over the science and math textbooks, the proliferation of irresponsible popular science books and the increasing reluctance of publishers, even university and other academic presses, to invest in quality primary science books. I suspect that as university scientists increasingly accept industrial, product-oriented research the quality and quantity of basic science diminishes. My experience with the Planetary Biology Internship program of NASA, the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences, the Elementary Science Study and its film program as well as extensive field work in Latin America and Europe have made me acutely aware of the difficulties for researchers who happen not to be United States citizens. The increasing imperative of (at least broken) English as the lingua franca of world science is a burden to many.

I welcome the opportunity to help Sigma Xi and the American Scientist lead the scientific research forum, beginning in the new Research Triangle Park home and extending throughout the world.

Back to top | Privacy Policy | Copyright ©2013. All Rights Reserved.