Following the announcement, on 16 March 2022, of the imminent retirement of IUPAC’s long-serving Executive Director, Dr. Lynn M. Soby, IUPAC is pleased to announce that Dr. Greta Heydenrych will be the new Executive Director of IUPAC, initially as a volunteer.
Dr. Heydenrych brings more than a decade’s worth of experience in academic publishing at Wiley-VCH, a subsidiary of Wiley. She served as the editor-in-chief of Chemistry Europe journals, including ChemPhysChem, ChemElectroChem and ChemPhotoChem. During her time at Wiley-VCH, she has launched several new journals and contributed to the global development of Wiley’s Chemistry publishing programme. The selection panel was impressed by her understanding of the challenges faced by IUPAC, particularly in relation to the digitalisation of chemistry, and in her ideas of the ways that the Secretariat can support the work of thousands of volunteers. Prior to her time at Wiley, Greta was a post-doctoral researcher in Germany, following a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. Her specialty was in computational chemistry.
Greta says of her appointment: “I am very honoured to be selected to serve as the Executive Director of IUPAC. Today is an exciting time for chemistry, with rapid developments everywhere in the field. IUPAC’s role in ensuring that chemists continue to speak the same language will only become more important in the next years, as the amounts and types of data being generated continue to increase and science becomes more open – as it should! I look forward to working with IUPAC’s tireless volunteers to create and maintain the common language of chemistry and to keep chemists worldwide connected in one community.”
Prof. Javier Garcia Martinez, IUPAC President, said “in addition to welcoming Dr. Heydenrych as IUPAC Executive Director, I want to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Lynn Soby who has been instrumental in bringing IUPAC into the digital age and making it more effective and impactful. As a result of her outstanding contributions and leadership, IUPAC is in an excellent position to continue fulfilling its mission and serving the global chemistry community.”
** About IUPAC **
IUPAC is the global organization that provides objective scientific expertise and develops the essential tools for the application and communication of chemical knowledge for the benefit of humankind and the world. IUPAC accomplishes its mission by fostering sustainable development, providing a common language for chemistry, and advocating the free exchange of scientific information. In fulfilling this mission, IUPAC effectively contributes to the worldwide understanding and application of the chemical sciences, to the betterment of humankind.
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