FIT Professor To Lead Chemical Society Group

By  //  December 22, 2012

International Expert In Polymers

BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – Florida Institute of Technology University Professor of Chemistry Gordon Nelson was recently named president of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents.

Florida Institute of Technology University Professor of Chemistry Gordon Nelson has been named president of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents. (Image courtesy of Florida Tech)

Martin Apple, who was the group’s president for 20 years, will continue to serve the council as Director of Research and Development.

Nelson previously served as vice president of academic affairs and for over two decades was dean of the College of Science at Florida Tech. Nelson was also the 1992 chair of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents and was president of the American Chemical Society in 1988.

Nelson is an international expert in polymers, especially in polymer flammability. He received the Society of the Plastics Industry, Structural Foam Division’s Man of the Year Award for 1979. The Mississippi Legislature passed a concurrent resolution in his honor in 1987.

He was the American Institute of Chemists Members and Fellows Lecturer in 1989 and in 1998 he received the Charles Holmes Herty Medal of the Georgia Section of the American Chemical Society.

“The Council of Scientific Society Presidents is fortunate to have as incoming President an eminent scientist with wide experience with public policy and scientific societies, including CSSP,” said George Corcoran, co-chair of the search committee and a past president of the Society for Toxicology.

Others agreed.

“With his background, experience and proven leadership, Gordon Nelson is the ideal person to lead CSSP,” noted Ralph James, 2012 Chair of CSSP.

The CSSP is a nonprofit organization of presidents, presidents-elect and past presidents of about 60 scientific federations and societies. Their combined membership includes over 1.4 million scientists and science educators.

CSSP was founded in 1973 with a mission to serve as a strong national voice in fostering wise science policy, to support science and science education and to be a center for science policy and leadership development.