MICHAEL MADDEN 

Present Position

Adjunct Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Gillings School of Public Health

Chapter Affiliation

Background Information

Statement

I was inducted into Sigma Xi in 1977 as a student (associate) member of the Manhattan College Chapter and maintained my affiliation with the Society ever since. This membership served me well as an indicator that my mentor believed I could become a successful scientific researcher which assisted me, in part, in obtaining entrance to the graduate department of my choice. Once in graduate school, I used the membership for a grant-in-aid of research award (1978) to assist with my Master of Science research at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography in affiliation with the University of Georgia. Later in my career, because of living in Chapel Hill, NC and working on the University of North Carolina campus, I switched and upgraded my membership to full membership at the UNC-Chapel Hill Chapter to become more active in the local society. In time, I served as President of the Chapter and continue today as Vice President. I am proud that we have inducted dozens of members, most undergraduate and graduate students, and I hope that the membership will provide a boost to their research careers as it did with mine. I have served the Society at the national level as well, being a member of the Committee on Nominations serving a three year term (including one year as chairperson) while representing the Southeast Region.

If elected an Associate Director for the Southeast Region, I would fulfill my duties by assisting the Regional Director as needed and directed. One issue I would work on is retention of student members. One mechanism to examine for the retention issue would be the Annual Meeting. A national conference is a magical and exciting experience for young researchers. The Sigma Xi Annual Meeting is a wonderful magnet for drawing undergraduate and high school students compared to other societies’ meetings that I have attended. Our Annual Meeting could serve as the means to have students return throughout their careers if properly structured. Upon entering graduate school and into postdoctoral positions, student members typically become more specialized and attend meetings within their specific discipline. However we should examine ways to recruit our members to the Annual Meeting as their second meeting which would assist in having graduate student members retain their memberships, in part through providing a financial incentive of reduced registration. For example, try to recruit the graduate students from the region that the annual meeting occurs in by scheduling regional sessions (e.g., symposium, workshop, even topical movies about the region) that hold more pertinence to those local members. To explore and understand the possible ways the Annual Meeting could be utilized to help retain members, I am gaining a better knowledge of the process for developing the Annual Meeting Program by serving on the Organizing Committee this year.

In addition, I believe Sigma Xi should continue the efforts in promoting the disciplines of STEM in schools, especially high schools, as well as developing more mechanisms of recruiting more diversity into the research world. Research positions are relatively well paid positions, and inclusion of more diverse populations into the research segment would more equitably distribute income.

I believe that my experiences in both the federal and academic environments, my knowledge of how other research societies and meetings are run, and my service in Sigma Xi activities and committees make me a very well qualified candidate for the Associate Director position of the Southeast Constituency.