The scientific research honor society Sigma Xi has announced the election of Joel Primack, distinguished professor emeritus of physics at UC Santa Cruz, as president-elect designee.
Primack will serve a three-year term. He will be Sigma Xi president-elect from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018. He will be president of Sigma Xi from July 1, 2018, to June 30, 2019, and he will serve as past president from July 1, 2019, to June 30, 2020.
One of the oldest and largest scientific organizations in the world, Sigma Xi has a distinguished history of service to science and society for more than one hundred and twenty five years. Its members are scientists and engineers whose research spans the disciplines of science and technology.
Primack was inducted into Sigma Xi 50 years ago as a senior at Princeton University. He later served as president of the Sigma Xi chapter at UC Santa Cruz. Sigma Xi chapters can be found at colleges and universities, government laboratories, and industry research centers around the world.
Primack joined the UCSC faculty in 1973. A fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he is a leader in particle astrophysics and cosmology, and he has also played a leading role on issues related to science and technology policy. Primack is the author of more than 200 refereed articles in scientific journals and coauthor of a book on science and public policy, Advice and Dissent: Scientists in the Political Arena (1974), as well as two popular books on modern cosmology and its implications for how we think about global problems: The View from the Center of the Universe: Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos (2006) and The New Universe and the Human Future: How a Shared Cosmology Could Transform the World (2011), both of which are now available in foreign editions.
