July 6, 2011

To the Membership of the North Shore Chapter of Sigma Xi:

I hope this note finds each of you doing well. Upon receiving our Chapter's charter from outgoing president Anne-Marie Scholer, just before high noon on July 5, at a symbolically significant site (the Depot Diner parking lot in North Beverly), I have assumed the role of Chapter president. Anne-Marie was the driving force behind the establishment of our Chapter, which is now entering its third year of life. She has done an amazing job shaping the Chapter, and I am grateful that she will continue on the executive committee (now as secretary: for more details, see our website: http://w3.salemstate.edu/~lhanson/NS_SigmaXi/).

The primary reason I am part of this Chapter is to learn what research other people are doing. The executive committee has discussed creating a periodic newsletter that features the recent and current research of our membership. As a small step in that direction, would you reply to this note with a list of recent professional accomplishments (grants received, publications, projects completed, presentations, patents, whatever fits for the sort of work that you do), and/or a 2-3 sentence description of the research work you are doing now? Once I have a substantial list, I'll compile it and send it out to the membership. I know many of us are doing field work and are offline for the summer -- whenever you get this, feel free to respond, and I'll roll you into the next list that comes out. (If any of you have a sense of how to do this more effectively, you can tell me about that, too.)

An almost equally strong reason for my Chapter membership is to get people to attend the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony with me. I've appended the e-mail sent in early June with the details about this, in case you missed it. We now have enough people committed to form our own delegation! Some people are talking about costumes (though those will remain strictly optional, I promise). If you'd like to be part of it, and expand the size of our delegation, let me know by July 15. I should purchase our block of tickets the day they come available, to get good seats.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Suzanne

Appendix: June 2 e-mail: Have you heard of the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony? It is a goofy, science-nerd humor event held each fall in Sanders Theater, at Harvard, paralleling the "real" Nobel Prizes which are announced at around the same time. Ten awards are given, in categories including medicine, economics, chemistry, biology, even a Peace Prize. A video of last year's ceremony is posted at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIKnFZhCr2k . A list of past winners and other goodies are at: http://improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2010 .

The North Shore Chapter of Sigma Xi is assembling a ** delegation ** to the Ceremony, which will be held on Thursday, September 29 (in the evening). If we can assemble a group of at least 6, we qualify as a delegation, and the presence of the "North Shore Chapter of Sigma Xi" will be announced at the start of the ceremony while we stand and are applauded. (To top that, if we wear crazy costumes, we may be selected to parade in when we are announced. Not so sure about that part.) If you would like to attend and be part of our delegation, please contact Suzanne.Phillips@gordon.edu, by July 15, 2011. Tickets are in the $45-$55 range; they go on sale "around August 1," and they go fast. If you want to attend as part of the delegation, you must make a deposit of $40 to reserve each ticket (also by July 15), with the balance due by August 15. Friends who are not Sigma Xi members are welcome.