New NCSE board members Prosanta Chakrabarty, J. Marshall Shepherd, and Emily Mendiola Sims.
NCSE is pleased to announce that Prosanta Chakrabarty, J. Marshall Shepherd, and Emily Mendiola Sims are joining NCSE's board of directors. At the same time, NCSE bids a fond farewell to Benjamin D. Santer.
Chakrabarty is the George H. Lowery Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Curator of Fishes at the Museum of Natural Science at Louisiana State University. He is a TED Senior Fellow, an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fulbright Distinguished Chair, and a National Geographic Certified Educator. He is also the author of a recent popular book, Explaining Life Through Evolution (MIT Press, 2023), which was reviewed in a recent issue of RNCSE.
Shepherd is the Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor of Geography and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Georgia. He is also the Director of the Atmospheric Sciences Program and a former President of the American Meteorological Society. He was elected to the National Academy of Science, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021. His many honors include NCSE's Friend of the Planet award in 2021.
Sims is Associate Dean of Students and Certification Officer in the College of Education at the University of Alabama. She works with numerous Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) site teams across the United States. Her engagement with education is both broad and deep: before taking her present position, she taught at the K-12 level, the community college level, and the university level, and served as a member of the board of education of the Jacksonville (Alabama) City School System. She has also been a National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT) for over 20 years
The distinguished climate scientist Benjamin D. Santer of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the University of California, Los Angeles, who joined the board in 2012 and became its Secretary in 2020, left the board at its February 2024 meeting; he was succeeded as Secretary by Sarah George. "Ben Santer has been a tremendous champion for climate change education throughout his career," commented NCSE's Executive Director Amanda L. Townley. "NCSE was singularly fortunate to have the benefit of his knowledge and wisdom for a dozen years."
Chakrabarty, Shepherd, and Sims will officially join the board at its May 2024 meeting, joining Kenneth R. Miller, Michael Haas, Sarah George, Maya Garcia, Joseph L. Graves Jr., Jo Handelsman, Michael Lubic, and Michael E. Mann.