Gregory M. Ferrence
2026 Sigma Xi Fellow
Statement
“I am honored to be named a Sigma Xi Fellow. I joined the Society in 1995, and in the three decades since, it has shaped how I think about my career as a scholar/teacher, crystal engineer, and an academic professional. The ISU/IWU chapter gave me a community of multi-disciplinary scientists. Sigma Xi’s long-standing commitment to honor, integrity, and ethics in science resonates deeply with me. It echoes the work I have been privileged to do with the American Chemical Society on professional ethics, my collaborations with colleagues at the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Center to advance crystallographic education and data sharing, and my belief that the habits of responsible research must be nurtured alongside the science itself. Sigma Xi welcomes new emerging scientists and tells them that they belong. I am proud to carry that mission forward, and grateful to the students, collaborators, and mentors who have shared this journey."
Biography
Dr. Gregory M. Ferrence is a Professor of Chemistry at Illinois State University, where he has taught since 1999, advancing from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor (2004) and Professor (2008). He earned a B.S. in chemistry from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (1991) and a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from Purdue University (1996). After serving as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Amherst College, he completed postdoctoral work in organolanthanide chemistry at the University of Alberta, and in organoactinide chemistry at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Dr. Ferrence’s research centers on synthesis and single-crystal X-ray structure determination. He began his independent career studying f-element organometallic chemistry, including the stabilization of a discrete divalent lanthanide hydride by a bulky hydrotris(pyrazolyl)borate ligand. That work was supported by an NSF CAREER award, “Crystallography And Rare-Earth Educational and Research activities,” along with Research Corporation and American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund grants. His crystallographic expertise has since made him a sought-after collaborator, and his publications now span porphyrin and carbaporphyrinoid chemistry, chiral oxadiazinone auxiliaries, ruthenium complexes studied as potential therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease and bacterial infections, organic co-crystals and solid-state photoreactivity, and vanadium-based materials. He has authored or co-authored more than 130 publications and given more than 170 presentations, 47 of them invited.
Dr. Ferrence has a long association with the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) at the University of Cambridge, where he has spent multiple sabbaticals in residence, and was a Visiting Fellow at Homerton College, where he has been bestowed Honorary member of the Roll. Since 2021 he has served a CSD Champion for the United States, one of 34 CSD Champions worldwide. An NSF Discovery Corps Senior Fellowship supported his efforts to bring the Cambridge Structural Database into undergraduate chemistry. With colleagues he published a series of articles on teaching three-dimensional structural chemistry with crystal structure databases, and he led faculty training workshops at colleges and universities in several states. He co-authored “CSD Communications of the Cambridge Structural Database” (IUCrJ, 2023) and, since 2023, has served as a co-editor of Acta Crystallographica Section E for the International Union of Crystallography.
A dedicated teacher, Dr. Ferrence has taught nearly 10,000 students over three decades. His teaching honors include the 2009 Carnegie Foundation Illinois Professor of the Year, Illinois State’s Outstanding University Teacher award), and the John A. Dossey Award for Outstanding Teaching. He has advised more than a dozen graduate students and more than fifty undergraduate researchers, including summer interns from Illinois community colleges through an NSF-funded Undergraduate Research Collaborative with two-year colleges. Many of his advisees have gone on to Ph.D., M.D., Pharm.D., and M.S. programs.
Ethics and professionalism in science are a thread through Dr. Ferrence’s service. He chaired the American Chemical Society (ACS) national Committee on Ethics (2012–2014) and served on the Committee for eight years. He served on the Executive Board of the ACS Division of Professional Relations (2014–2019), chaired its Ethics Subdivision in multiple years, and chaired the Subcommittee on Policies and Ethics of the ACS Committee on Economics and Professional Affairs for several years. He has served on the ACS Committee on Constitution and Bylaws, and the ACS Fellows Selection Committee. He has spoken on professional ethics including at multiple International Chemical Congresses of Pacific Basin Societies (Pacifichem) Within the Council on Undergraduate Research, he served as Chemistry Councilor and as Institutional Liaison for Illinois State.
At Illinois State University, Dr. Ferrence chaired the Council on General Education (2022–2026), served on the Academic Senate and its Executive Committee, chaired the University Curriculum Committee. He was elected to represent the university on the Illinois Board of Higher Education Faculty Advisory Council (2024–2028), where he chairs the working group on technology in higher education.
A member of Sigma Xi since 1995, Dr. Ferrence served in the presidential succession of the Illinois State University/Illinois Wesleyan University Chapter, and as its secretary/treasurer for ten years. Among his other honors are election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2014) and as an ACS Fellow (2016), the ACS Illinois Heartland Section’s Chemist of the Year (2009) and Distinguished Service Award (2017), and the Outstanding College Service Award from Illinois State’s College of Arts and Sciences (2014).