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December Board Meeting Coincides with Centennial Celebrations The December meeting of the board of trustees was held at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C., on December 6 and 7. Besides the board, three standing committees also held meetings: the finance and research committees on December 6 and the nominating committee on December 7. At the board meeting, Chris Field, interim director of the new Department of Global Ecology, updated the trustees on the progress of the new department, including staffing and plans for the building to be constructed on the Stanford campus. Allan Spradling, director of Embryology, reported on the status of the new Embryology building, which will be located on the campus of Johns Hopkins University. The board approved two new Staff Member appointments: Dr. Gregory P. Asner, who joins the Department of Global Ecology, and Dr. Kathryn Barton, who joins the Department of Plant Biology. Asner comes to Carnegie from the Environmental Studies Program at the Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado, where he was an assistant professor. His specialties are satellite data interpretation and the geological and biological processes involved in controlling soil composition and function. Barton studies the structure and function of plant meristems in Arabidopsis. Before coming to Carnegie she was an associate professor in the Department of Genetics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Two new Staff Members described their work to board members on Thursday. Kathryn Barton talked about stem cells in plants, and Andrew Steele of the Geophysical Lab spoke on an approach to detecting microbes on Earth and on other celestial bodies. Afterward, the trustees had the opportunity to review the centennial exhibition, Our Expanding Universe. That evening they joined guests for the gala celebration of Carnegie’s 100th birthday. |