Judith C. Giordan elected 2022 ACS president-elect

Judith C. Giordan, managing director and vice president of ecosVC, has been elected the 2022 American Chemical Society president-elect by members of ACS. Giordan will serve as president of the society in 2023 and immediate past president in 2024; she will also serve on the board of directors from 2022 through 2024.

With 6,311 votes, Giordan won the president-elect race against John C. Warner, senior vice president for chemistry and a distinguished research fellow at Zymergen, who received 6,044 votes. ACS, which publishes C&EN, also elected or re-elected four other board directors.

“I’m honored, of course, and I’m thankful to all those people who took the time to vote. Voting is a very important thing that we do in the United States and certainly at the ACS,” Giordan says. “And I also thank John Warner, whom I know well, for being such a great candidate.”

During her presidential year, Giordan plans to focus on furthering diversity, inclusion, justice, equity, and respect; encouraging innovation and career development programs; advocating for chemistry; fostering connection among ACS members; and promoting safety and sustainability. “I believe that now, more than ever before, there’s an opportunity and a need for science and scientists to be trusted, heard, and also be able to listen to the concerns of others,” Giordan says. “Therefore the ability that we all have to advocate for trust in science and be believable is critically important.”

In other election news, Katherine L. Lee, senior director of Pfizer’s Inflammation and Immunology Research Unit, was re-elected director of District I, defeating D. Richard Cobb, who is retired from the Eastman Kodak Company.

Lisa M. Balbes, a freelance technical writer and editor with Balbes Consultants, was elected director of District V, defeating Joseph A. Heppert, vice president for research at Texas Tech University.

Two candidates won director-at-large: Natalie A. LaFranzo, vice president of market development at Cofactor Genomics, was elected, and Lee H. Latimer, drug development consultant with LHLatimer Consulting, was re-elected. They defeated Rodney M. Bennett, principal and owner of Winding Trails, and Arlene A. Garrison, who is retired from Oak Ridge Associated Universities.

A total of 12,355 valid votes were cast for president-elect. Voter participation was nearly 10% of all eligible voters.