BOARD OF DIRECTORS
The executive board is comprised of STEM professionals who share a vision of connecting scientists of all backgrounds and interests. ADSE executive board positions will be open to previous leaders of local chapters.
Steven Lopez, Ph.D.
Chairman of the Board
Steven is an ADSE co-founder and the current Chair of the Board of Directors of ADSE. He received his B.S. in Chemistry in 2010 from New York University and his PhD in organic chemistry in 2015 from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is currently an assistant professor of chemistry at Northeastern University and the faculty advisor for the ADSE@NU chapter.
The Lopez lab focuses on computational organic photochemistry and materials chemistry. His group is funded by the Office of Naval Research on a $500,000 Multi University Research Initiative (MURI) grant, National Science Foundation ($600,000) to use computational chemistry and machine learning techniques to design catalysts for organic photoredox reactions, and the Massachusetts Life Science Foundation ($750,000) to identify non-invasive alternatives to chemotherapy for site-specific cancer treatments.
Dr. Melissa Ramirez
Social Media Coordinator
Melissa was born in Los Angeles, CA and raised in Pasadena, CA. She is a first-generation Mexican American, and obtained her B.A. in chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania in 2016. Thereafter, Melissa attended the University of California, Los Angeles where she received a Ph.D. in chemistry in 2021. Currently, Melissa is an NSF Ascend and Caltech Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Professor Brian Stoltz. Her goal is to obtain a faculty position at an R1 institution after completion of her postdoc and train the next generation of diverse scientists.
Aidan W. Short
Website Chair
Growing up in New York City, Aidan developed an interest in biology watching insects in Riverside Park. This interest led him to Bowdoin College where he majored in biology and studied the diet of the invasive green crab. Aidan developed an interest in plant evolution as a Master's student at Guangxi University where he studied the cold stress response of mangroves. Aidan is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Oregon where he studies monkeyflower adaptation and speciation in the Streisfeld Lab. As a member of ADSE, Aidan hopes to help increase student interest and involvement in scientific research.