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ACS News

Volunteer service award to Carolyn Ribes

by Linda Wang
July 6, 2018 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 96, Issue 28

 

Photo of Carolyn Ribes.
Credit: Courtesy of Carolyn Ribes
Carolyn Ribes

Carolyn Ribes is the recipient of the 2019 Award for Volunteer Service to the American Chemical Society. Created in 2001, the award recognizes individuals who have contributed significantly to ACS’s goals and objectives. Ribes was cited for her impactful leadership, commitment to diversity, and tireless volunteerism to ACS at the local, divisional, and national levels.

“Carolyn is blazingly competent and genuinely committed to the society,” says Mary Carroll, who has served on numerous committees with Ribes. “She led several ACS units toward meeting strategically important, long-range objectives while at the same time broadening and developing the pool of ACS volunteer leaders. Carolyn exemplifies the very best qualities of volunteerism, as a leader and individual contributor.”

Ribes, who is a business analytical leader at Dow Chemical in Terneuzen, the Netherlands, says she was surprised to receive the news that she had won the award. “I’m very honored and humbled because when I reflect on all the other people who have won the award in the past, they’re leaders that I really respect, and many have been role models for me,” Ribes says.

Ribes’s extensive list of volunteer activities has included serving as chair of the Baton Rouge Local Section, councilor of the Brazosport Local Section, treasurer of the Analytical Chemistry Division, chair of the Younger Chemists Committee, chair of the Women Chemists Committee, and inaugural chair of the Joint Subcommittee on Diversity. She has also served in leadership roles on the Committee on Science, the Board Committee on Planning, the Committee on Committees (ConC), the Task Force on Governance Design, and the Council Policy Committee (CPC).

Ribes says her proudest accomplishments are ones in which her work has helped ACS members. For example, as vice chair of CPC, she partnered with ConC to obtain approval for the noncouncilor travel reimbursement that allows committee members who aren’t councilors to receive reimbursement for travel to ACS national meetings. “That had been floating around for a while, and when I came on the CPC, I helped draw that to closure,” she says.

As treasurer of the Analytical Chemistry Division, she helped support a fellowship program for graduate students. “I had received a fellowship as a graduate student, and it was so nice to be able to pay it back and to be able to support graduate students who are doing excellent research,” she says. She also continues to champion diversity, inclusion, and volunteerism with the society. As the current chair of ConC, she is developing new approaches to engaging ACS’s army of volunteers.

Ribes says that you get out of volunteerism what you put in. “Whatever I’ve invested, I’ve had a return on that investment and much more.”

CORRECTION

This story was updated on July 2, 2019, to correct the year associated with Ribes's award. She is the 2019 recipient, not the 2018 recipient.

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