Homer A. Neal

Homer A. Neal is the Samuel A. Goudsmit Professor of Physics, Interim President Emeritus, and Vice President Emeritus for Research at the University of Michigan.  He received his B.S. degree in Physics, with honors, in 1961 from Indiana University, and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in1966. He has served on the physics faculties of Indiana University, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and the University of Michigan.  He has held several academic administrative posts, including Dean for Research and Graduate Development at Indiana University (1976-81),Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost at the State University of New York at Stony Brook (1981-86), , Chair of the University of Michigan Physics Department (1987- 1993), Vice President for Research at the University of Michigan (1993 – 1997) and Interim President of the University of Michigan (1998).

Dr. Neal's research area is experimental high energy physics and he is currently conducting his research at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, where his research group is part of the ATLAS Experiment. Neal also participates in the DZERO collaboration that in 1995 announced the discovery of the top quark. Within the DZERO collaboration, he and his group had particular responsibility for designing, implementing, and analyzing data from the Intercryostat Detector which was built by his team at the University of Michigan. His technical research expertise includes the design of particle detectors, the development of image pattern recognition algorithms, particle event reconstruction and analysis, large scale database management and particle physics phenomenology. He has led many experiments that have elucidated the nature of spin effects in high energy particle interactions, including proton-proton elastic scattering, electron-positron scattering and in various inclusive hadronic reactions.  

Neal has served as a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution. He has also served as a member of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Advisory Board, as a member of the MIT Visiting Committee on Sponsored Research, and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He has served on the Board of Trustees of the Argonne National Laboratory and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. As a member of the National Science Board, the oversight body of the National Science Foundation, he chaired the committee that produced in 1986 the Board's first comprehensive report on undergraduate science, mathematics and engineering education. He has also served as Chairman of the Physics Advisory Committee of the National Science Foundation. He has delivered testimony on numerous occasions to Congress, on matters ranging from the funding of National Laboratories to the state of undergraduate science education. He delivered testimony to the House Science Committee on International Science, as part of its preparations for the report, “Unlocking our Future: Toward a New National Science Policy.”. 

He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Ford Motor Company and currently Chairs its Committee on Environmental and Public Policy. He is also currently a member of the External Advisory Committee for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and is a member of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Reseach Council.  In addition, he serves as a member of the Smithsonian Council for the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

He is a recipient of the Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, the Stony Brook Medal, and the Indiana University Distinguished Alumni Service Award. He has received honorary degrees from Indiana University, Notre Dame University and Michigan State University. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

As Vice President for Research, Dr. Neal oversaw the research programs, policies and infrastructure at the University of Michigan, which has been often ranked, in terms of total separately budgeted Research and Development expenditures, as the nation's top research university.

He has had extended scientist-in-residence appointments at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen and at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva. He has been a visiting scientist at Stanford University, Argonne National Laboratory, and Brookhaven National Laboratory. His professional travels have also taken him to the Institute for High Energy Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and to laboratories in the former Soviet Union, Israel, Japan and several other countries.

Tobin L. Smith

Tobin (Toby) Smith is the Associate Vice President for Federal Relations at the Association of American Universities (AAU).  In this position, he is responsible for overseeing physical sciences and engineering research and has closely monitored budgets and programs at the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security.  

Toby is currently responsible at the AAU for issues relating to innovation and national competitiveness, including the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative, and shares responsibility for monitoring science policy issues concerning export controls, technology transfer, and costs of research among other things.

Prior to joining the AAU in January 2003, Toby was the Director of Federal Relations for Research for the University of Michigan.  From 1992-1999 he served as Federal Relations Representative and Assistant Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Washington D.C. Office. 

As a federal government relations representative for the AAU, Michigan, and MIT, Toby has developed and coordinated university federal relations activities and legislative and executive branch strategies across a wide range of science policy issues.  He has also maintained regular interactions with key policy makers on Capitol Hill, in the White House and within the federal science and research agencies including the NIH, NSF, NASA, and the Departments of Energy, Defense and Homeland Security. From 1988 to 1992, Toby served as a legislative assistant to Congressman Bob Traxler (D-Michigan).

Toby has written and spoken widely on issues of science policy. He is a regular contributor to the AAAS Intersociety Working Group Annual Research and Development report.  He has also spoken to many groups, including the AAAS and various chapters of the Association of Women in Science (AWIS), concerning how scientists and engineers can better work with and communicate with member of Congress.

He holds a Masters Degree in Arts of Legislative Affairs from George Washington University, and a Bachelor Degree in General Studies from the University of Michigan. 

Jennifer B. McCormick   

Jennifer (Jen) McCormick is Assistant Professor of Biomedical Ethics and Associate Consultant (Research), Division of General Internal Medicine Program in Professionalism and Bioethics Research at the Mayo Clinic and College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota.  She is also the associate director of the Mayo Clinical Translational Science Award Research Ethics Resource.

Jen’s current research interests are at the intersection of science, policy, and society, especially for life and biomedical sciences.  She is working on a multi-phase study evaluating life scientists’ perceptions of the ethical and societal implications of life science research. She is also involved in several projects looking at human embryonic stem cell policy, one of which led to a 2006 publication in Nature Biotechnology (Owen-Smith and McCormick, Nature Biotech. 24 (April 2006): 391-392).  One of the broader topics in which Jen has an ongoing interest is the discourse around social responsibility and the role of scientists in the policy formation process.

Jen did her doctoral work on Drosophila neuropeptides in the department of biology, the cell and molecular biology division.  Jen continued her training as a postdoctoral fellow working in Philip Andrews’ lab on proteomic and bioinformatics technology development at the University of Michigan Medical School. From 2001-2002, she managed a state-wide commercialization initiative (funded by the Michigan Life Sciences Corridor Fund) under the direction of the Associate Vice President for Research, University of Michigan.  In 2004, Jen was awarded a master’s in public policy from the University of Michigan's Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy.  During the 2004-2005 academic year, she was a lecturer in the Ford School, teaching courses in science policy.   She completed her postdoctoral fellow training in biomedical ethics and policy, and social science research at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics in June 2008.

Jen is a member of several professional organizations and enjoys contributing to science education, outreach, and policy efforts. One of her proudest accomplishments is bringing to Ann Arbor the Brains Rule Neuroscience Expo and co-organizing this science education outreach event from 2001-2004.