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Election Results

Election Results: Officers and Governors Announced!

President-Elect and chair of the nominating committee, Dayong Gao, offers his congratulations to the winning candidates of the Society for Cryobiology election. 

After you've read all about the winners, please take a moment to renew your membership for 2018, if you have not already done so. 

Election-winners

Winning Candidates: 
President-Elect, Adam Higgins; Secretary, Yuksel Agca; Treasurer, Zhiquan (Andy) Shu
Governors, Ido Braslavsky, Igor Katkov, and Erik Woods 

The Society for Cryobiology's new President-Elect is Adam Higgins. Adam is Associate Professor in the School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University, where his current research focuses on the development of mathematical optimization strategies for the design of preservation procedures, and microfluidic processes for cell preservation.

Adam has been a member of the Society for Cryobiology since 2003. In that time he has served on the student awards committees during several annual meetings, contributed to conference planning as a member of the Program Committee and served on the Board of Governors from 2013-2017 as treasurer. He also co-chaired the 48th annual meeting of the Society for Cryobiology, held in Corvallis, Oregon in 2011. 


Adam's manifesto for his Presidency is to continue to strengthen the sense of community within the Society for Cryobiology in order to attract and retain members -  particularly by focusing on young and early-mid career members, to strengthen the annual meeting by offering incentives to first time attendees, and also to provide wider visibility for the Society by sponsoring symposia and workshops at other meetings. 

Adam will take up his role as President-Elect in January 2018, with his term as President commencing in 2020. 

Yuksel Agca has again successfully defended his position of Secretary, a role which he has held since 2012. Yuksel is an Associate Professor at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine, where his research program focuses on germplasm cryobiology and genetic modification in rats.

Newcomer to the Board of Governors, Zhiquan Shu, is the Society's new treasurer. Zhiquan is Clinical Assistant Professor at the Washington State University, Associate Director of the Center for Cryobiomedical Engineering and Artificial Organs and an Affiliate Assistant Professor at the University of Washington. 

This year's election for governor 2018-2020 featured an exceptionally large slate of candidates, making this a very competitive year for running as a candidate for governor. The winning candidates  were Ido Braslavksy, Igor Katkov, and Erik Woods.

Ido is Associate Professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, working on the biophysics of ice binding proteins and their applications in cryobiology, on ice growth manipulation by electromagnetic irradiation and development of directional freezing methods. Ido believes that the successful preservation of tissue samples, blood, stem cells, and organs will be at the core of effective distribution and storage of the next generation of diagnostic and therapeutic cell based medicine, meaning increased visibility for the field of cryobiology as a whole. 

Igor Katkov holds dual roles at CELLTRONIX, USA and Belgorod National Research University of Russia. Igor plans to focus his term as governor on expanding the Society's visibility and membership in Eastern European countries, which feature a large amount of cryobiology research but where the Society has low penetration of membership. 

Lastly, Erik Woods, well known to members as President of the Society from 2014-2015, and currently serving out his term as immediate Past-President, has been re-elected to the Board as a governor. Erik has recently co-founded Ossium Health, a company dedicated to creating a cryopreserved bone marrow bank from deceased donors. Erik wishes to build on his work as President and Past-President by continuing to 
promote outreach to groups such as OPA (Organ Preservation Alliance), AABB, AATB, ISCT. 

Congratulations to all our winning candidates, and a sincere thank you to all candidates who stood for election and to all members who voted. 

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