District IV Board Council BOARd Statement
(Spring 2019)

I can barely believe that I started on this journey as your District Director six years ago. Our world was a very different place then, but one thing remains constant. And that is the need for the ACS to advance chemical science and technology in the service of our society, our members, and you. Throughout my time on the Board, I have focused on three of ACS’s core values: The value proposition of ACS membership, science advocacy, and education of the chemical workforce. My efforts in these areas are visible through my committee service roles, and I have promoted them through oral presentations and written articles. I’ve been privileged to serve because it has allowed me to meet many of you at local section meetings, our regional meetings, and national meetings.

As you have likely heard countless times, the power of the ACS lies in part in the fact that we are a group of over 150,000 members. In “ACS: Your brick-and-mortar and virtual network all in one" [C&EN 96:10, 34 (2018)], I argued that it is this authentic fellowship among our very diverse membership that drives us to be members. We are diverse among many vectors, including geography, gender, ethnicity, degree earned, professional and academic career stage, employment sector, etc. That is why I have emphasized “Bringing diversity and inclusion to the ACS table.” [C&EN 97:9, 47 (2019)] We share a commonality in our interest in chemical science and technology. Some of us are no longer practicing chemistry in the sense of what we learned directly in school. Yet we continue to be “chemists” —that is, ACS members— because we retain a logic and approach to solving problems that is rooted in our discipline. Moreover, through our membership, we remain connected to others like you and me. This can only happen if you and everyone reading this statement retains their membership. I am driven to work on the Board so as to ensure that we remain true to ourselves, so that you and I will remain as members, and many more will become members too.

One of the opportunities afforded by the strength of our society is the possibility to advocate for science and the infrastructure to advance it. As a member of the Board, I have routinely worked with staff to advocate on behalf of public support for science advancement. As federal science budgets remain flat or are decreasing, the burden of such support has increasingly fallen on the hands of private philanthropy. Recognizing this as an opportunity, rather than a burden, I wrote in C&EN [93:37, 33 (2015)] about the need for private funding of the high-risk, high-reward projects that are essential for future advances. Increasingly, the solutions require us to use tools from our broad discipline. That is, we should think beyond our subdisciplines and work together to use OneChemistry tools.  [C&EN 95:17, 41 (2017)]  Fortunately, this kind of convergence resonates with the interests of potential financial supporters of our research, as they drive us towards use-inspired basic research. It also resonates with the growth of our society journals helping define chemistry more broadly.

All of this is for naught if we don’t maintain our educational mission. The Project Seed and ACS Scholars programs are vital as they provide direct support for the next generation of chemists. I applaud Fraser Stoddard and Peter Dorhout for championing these programs and encouraging all of us to do so with financial gifts. We need to do this and more to support basic education and future research. But education doesn’t stop at degrees conferred. I learned from the ACS Leadership Development system just how important it is to lead when running my research group, running OXIDE, and, yes, serving you on the Board. This led me to construct the Academic Leadership Training Workshop [C&EN 94:10, 47 (2016)], which was staged for the fourth time in February 2019, and has now served more than 120 mid-career professors. 

Finally, in my role on the Board I have had the opportunity to visit several local sections, including my very own Georgia, Greater Houston, South Florida, Nashville, Puerto Rico and the hosting sections of several SERMACS and SWRM regional meetings in District IV. The common thread is the enthusiasm, talent and engagement of our students and our fellow ACS volunteers. I hope that I will have your vote so that I can continue to drive an agenda to advance our ACS, and so that I can continue to meet you and others at future local section visits. To this end, I look forward to hearing from you through links at http://tinyurl.com/hernandez4acs  to learn more about how to make our ACS fellowship even stronger. I also ask for your vote so that I may continue to work with you and our fellow ACS members to improve your ACS.