HIST Election 2024
Candidate Biographies

Chair-Elect (2025-2026, Chair 2027-2028)

Nick Tsarevsky obtained an M.S. degree in theoretical chemistry and chemical physics in 1999 from the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, and a Ph.D. degree in chemistry in 2005 from Carnegie Mellon University under the supervision of Prof. Kris Matyjaszewski. He was a visiting assistant professor at the Department of Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University (2005-6), and a member of the founding team of ATRP Solutions, Inc., of which he served as chief science officer (2007-2010). He joined the Department of Chemistry at Southern Methodist University in the summer of 2010 as an assistant professor, and in 2016 he was promoted to associate professor with tenure. In 2020-21, he served as program director at the National Science Foundation. Since 2022, he has been also an Affiliate Faculty in Graduate Liberal Studies at the Department of Lifelong Learning in the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development. Nick has authored and coauthored over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, one textbook, and has served as the co-editor of seven books. He has given over 220 lectures at conferences and universities, as well as presentations on popular chemistry, including over 35 presentations on the history of chemistry. He has served as organizer and chair of multiple national and international symposia, including 8 specialized and 12 general papers symposia on the history of chemistry at ACS national and/or regional meetings. In the period 2008-10, Nick was the chair-elect, chair, and immediate past chair of the Pittsburgh local section of the ACS. After serving as the associate program chair of the Division for the History of Chemistry of the ACS (2016-17), he served as the program chair of the Division (2018-24). Nick received several awards including an IUPAC Young Observer Fellowship, an NSF CAREER Award (both in 2015), the Wilfred T. Doherty Award of the Dallas-Fort Worth Section of the ACS (2020), and was elected ACS Fellow (2024).

Secretary-Treasurer (2025-2026 term)

Alice Haddy iis a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She received her BS degree, with majors in chemistry and anthropology, from the University of Michigan in 1981 and her PhD degree in chemistry from the University of Michigan in 1988. She has taught courses on physical chemistry for the life sciences and developed a course for non-science majors on energy use. She has carried out NSF-funded research on photosystem II, the light-absorbing protein complex in higher plants that produces oxygen, using EPR and kinetics methods. In recent years, she has developed research projects in science history focusing on the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her interests include women in chemistry education, early synthetic analgesic drugs and antiseptics, patent medicines, and drug regulation. She has been a member of the American Chemical Society since 1994 and a member of the HIST Division since 2020.

Vera Mainz is retired Director of the NMR Lab in the School of Chemical Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received a B.S. in Chemistry and Mathematics at Kansas Newman College (1976), a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry at the University of California Berkeley (1981), spent 1-1/2 years working at Rohm and Haas in Springhouse, PA, and had a postdoctoral position at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1983-1985) before becoming Director of the NMR Lab. She has been a member of the ACS since co-founding a student chapter of the ACS on her college campus in 1975. She joined the HIST Division in 1994, was elected to the position of Secretary-Treasurer in 1995, and has served as Secretary-Treasurer since that time. Over the course of these years she has expanded the responsibility of the Secretary-Treasurer to include being the HIST Division webmaster. Vera is committed to expanding the value and increasing the timeliness of the Division's website, including making all issues of the Bulletin for the History of Chemistry available to HIST members via the website. Her interest in the HIST Division was kindled when she presented her work on the chemical genealogy of the University of Illinois (UI) Chemistry Department at a HIST symposium on chemical genealogies in 1994. She has continued her work in this area, posting her information to a website at http://web-genealogy.scs.illinois.edu/, and plans to update this project when her schedule allows. Vera's interest in the history of chemistry led her and her husband to co-curate two exhibits at the Univ. of Illinois' Rare Book Room: 1) From Alchemy to Chemistry: Five Hundred Years of Rare and Interesting Books, http://rbx-exhibit2000.scs.uiuc.edu/; and 2) Crystallography - Defining the Shape of Our Modern World, found online at URL http://xray-exhibit.scs.illinois.edu/.

Vera was a member of the ACS Fellows Class of 2012, which honored her contributions to the ACS (HIST and local section service) and the many students she has helped while working in the NMR Lab. Vera would like to continue to serve the Division as Secretary-Treasurer.

Councilor (2026 - 2028 term)

Roger A. Egolf is Associate Professor of Chemistry at the Pennsylvania State University - Lehigh Valley Campus, where he has taught since 1989. He received his B.S. degree (1985) in chemistry from Kutztown State University and his M.S. (1987) and Ph.D. (1990) degrees in organic chemistry from Lehigh University under the direction of Ned Heindel.

Roger has been active in the ACS in a variety of capacities at both the local and national levels. He has been especially active in the History Division, having served as Program Chair from 1999 to 2004, Chair-Elect in 2005-2006, Chair in 2007-2008, and Past-Chair in 2009-2010. Since 2011 he has served as a Councilor from the Division. During his years on Council he has served on the Meetings and Expositions Committee and his current committee, the Divisional Activities Committee. He also serves as the representative from the Division to the Science History Institute (formerly known as the Chemical Heritage Foundation) as a member of its Affiliates Council.

Roger is also active in his Local ACS Section, the Lehigh Valley Section. In the past he has served that Section multiple times as Treasurer, Chair Elect, Chair, Past Chair, Alternate Councilor, and Councilor.

Roger's main research interest in the history of chemistry is 19th century chemical education, especially the origins of doctoral education in chemistry in the United States.

Alternate Councilor (2026-2028 term)

David E. Lewis iis Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He received his education at the University of Adelaide, in South Australia: B.Sc. (Chemistry) 1972; B.Sc. (Hons.) (1st Class, Organic Chemistry) 1973; Ph.D. (Organic Chemistry) 1980. He earned the University's highest degree in science, the Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) in the Faculty of Sciences, in 2012.

Lewis joined the ACS in 1980, and has been an active member of his local sections (Heart O' Texas, Sioux Valley, and Central Wisconsin), and has served multiple times as Chair-Elect, Chair, and Immediate Past Chair of his local sections since 1982; he served as Councilor of the Sioux Valley Section for six years, and has been an Alternate Councilor for the Central Wisconsin Section multiple times. Lewis has served HIST as Chair-elect, Chair and Immediate Past Chair, and as a member of the Outstanding Paper Award Committee multiple times. He is the recipient of the 2018 HIST Award and a 2019 recipient of the Markovnikov Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Organic Chemistry conferred by Lomonosov Moscow State University. He is the first individual to receive the Paul R. Jones Outstanding Paper Award three times.

Lewis' interests in the history of chemistry are in the development of organic chemistry in Russia during the imperial era, and the Soviet era before World War 2. He is a regular contributor to the Bulletin for the History of Chemistry and presents regularly in the HIST programs at National ACS Meetings. He has presented two CCB Awards at St. Petersburg and Kazan, and 12 keynote or plenary lectures to conferences in Russia since 2013; his works in the history of chemistry were translated into Russian and issued as a bilingual book in 2016. He was a keynote speaker at the Satellite Symposium of the Mendeleev Congress in St. Petersburg, 2019, where the sesquicentennial of Mendeleev's Periodic System of the Elements was celebrated. He was added as an Editor to the English translation of History of Organic Chemistry in Russian Universities. From origins to the present day; (NGB Publishing House: Moscow, 2022).

The positions and duties are described in Bylaw III in the HIST bylaws.