Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association Welcomes Nancy Ryan Gray, Ph.D. as Featured Guest for December Science Speaker Series

Nov 29, 2023

NANTUCKET, MA — The Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) announces that it will host Nancy Ryan Gray, Ph.D., as a featured presenter for its December Science Speaker Series. Her presentation will take place on Wednesday, December 13 at 7pm. It will be presented via Zoom. This event is free to all.


“The Keys to Success. . . Are Somewhere at the Bottom of My Purse” The title of this presentation would suggest that she is clearly not an expert on the keys to success. Nevertheless, the presentation highlights Nancy Ryan Gray’s circuitous career path, a few of the “lessons” she has learned over the past thirty years, and the “things she knows now” but “wish she'd known then.”


Nancy Ryan Gray is the current President and Chief Executive Officer of the Gordon Research Conferences. Nancy received her B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of Notre Dame and her Ph.D. in Fuel Chemistry from The Pennsylvania State University. Prior to joining GRC, Nancy served as the Director of Membership at the American Chemical Society and as a Research Specialist in Organic Chemistry at Exxon Production Research Company. Nancy has served on the Board of Directors of Ligand Pharmaceuticals since August 2017. Ligand is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing or acquiring technologies that help pharmaceutical companies in drug discovery, early-stage drug development, and product reformulation. Nancy has also served on the Board of Directors of Slater Technology Fund since March 2021. Slater is a not-for-profit seed fund dedicated to supporting new technology ventures founded by entrepreneurs to build companies that aim to achieve transformational impact in the industries or markets they serve.


Nancy is recognized for her efforts in establishing and growing the Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) initiative to enable graduate students and postdocs to share in the GRC experience. The GRS is a two-day meeting designed specifically for early career scientists to present and discuss research and build collaborative relationships with colleagues. She is also recognized for founding the GRC Power Hour initiative as a forum for conversations to promote inclusion and addressing the challenges women and all underrepresented groups face in achieving equity in science. The 2013 recipient of the Providence Business News Industry Leader Award for Non-Profit Organizations, Nancy is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the American Chemical Society. She received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Colby-Sawyer College in 2019 for her leadership and the commitment she has offered to Gordon Research Conferences and the scientific community.


Join Nancy Ryan Gray for this Science Speaker Series Talk on Zoom. Pre-registration is required.


To register for this event, please follow the link below:

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_AIplF_CMTD6j1uzAjsgmsQ#/registration



This series is generously sponsored by our lead sponsor, Bank of America.


The Maria Mitchell Association is a private non-profit organization. Founded in 1902, the MMA works to preserve the legacy of Nantucket native astronomer, naturalist, librarian, and educator, Maria Mitchell. The Maria Mitchell Association operates two observatories, a natural science museum, an aquarium, a research center, and preserves the historic birthplace of Maria Mitchell. A wide variety of science and history-related programming is offered throughout the year for people of all ages.


                                    ### 


For Immediate Release

November 29, 2023

Contact: Molly Mosscrop, Marketing Director

mmosscrop@mariamitchell.org

Recent Posts

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • 13 May, 2024
May 27. {1857} There is this great difference between Niagara and other wonders of the world, that is you get no idea from descriptions or even from paintings. Of the Mammoth Cave you have a conception from what you are told, of the Natural Bridge you get really a truthful impression from a picture. But Cave and Bridge are in still life, Niagara is all activity and change. No picture gives you the varying form of the water of the change of color; no description conveys to your mind the ceaseless roar. So too the ocean must be unrepresentable to those who have not looked upon it. Maria Mitchell would tour the Mammoth Cave and the Natural Bridge during her trip to the southern United States as Prudence Swift’s chaperone – I have written of these travels and Prudence before. Niagara Falls is a place she likely saw on her way to visit her younger sister Phebe Mitchell Kendall, who once lived with her husband in Pennsylvania. I was a bit surprised that she feels the way she does about the Cave and Bridge being well-represented by images but I do kind of se her point. But Niagara, the ocean, any moving body of water – she is right. You don’t fully comprehend it until you hear it, touch and taste it, see its colors, and feel it splash, sprinkle, or mist across your face. Niagara certainly mists across your face – sort of like a breezy day at the beach and the salt mist that slowly builds across your face and coats the beach grass so that it shimmers in the sunlight. JNLF

Keep Calm and Bird On: May 2024

08 May, 2024
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews

Shards

By Jascin N. Leonardo FInger • 06 May, 2024
I have written of my love for sea glass and pottery shards in the past and the recent replacement of the sewer and water lines on Vestal Street created a small shard collection over the last month. Since the work required the asphalt to be completely removed (all twelve inches of it!) and the road to be dug up multiple times as they worked to remove pipe, relay new pipe, hook up the water meters, and install drainage and manhole covers, this resulted in the earth in the street being tossed about quite a bit. And, with that, came the shards! Some of these likely came from the sewer line (yes, yuck) but others came from being simply in the dirt of the road – which was not paved until 1946/1948. Pieces were likely tossed out at times, made to act as filler in holes, or simply tossed. So I found all sorts of pieces I will keep here at the Mitchell House. They included: a lovely piece with a red floral, many pieces of plates, glass, the top of a late nineteenth or early twentieth century (medicine) bottle, glass shards, a flattened spoon, a brass knob (found by a neighbor) some nails, a spike, pieces of a larger container or two based on the size and curve and coloring of the shards, and possibly a Wampanoag stone tool. One person’s trash is another one’s treasures! JNLF
Show More
Share by: