Geraldine (Geri) Richmond is the Presidential Chair in Science and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oregon. Her research using laser spectroscopy and computational methods focusses on understanding environmentally and technologically important processes that occur at liquid surfaces. A native of Kansas, Richmond received her B.S. in Chemistry from Kansas State University in 1976 and her Ph.D. in physical chemistry under the direction of George Pimentel at the University of California, Berkeley in 1980. After her first faculty appointment as assistant professor at Bryn Mawr College she moved to the University of Oregon where she has been since 1985.

Geraldine Richmond is the 2018 recipient of the Priestley Medal, the American Chemical Society’s highest honor. And in 2013, she received the National Medal of Science in Chemistry from President Obama for her landmark discoveries of the molecular characteristics of water surfaces; for her creative demonstration of how her findings impact many key biological, environmental, chemical, and technological processes; and for her extraordinary efforts in the United States and around the globe to promote women in science.

Jo Handelsman is the director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. Before her appointment at WID, Dr. Handelsman served as the associate director for science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under President Obama. Prior to her work at OSTP, Dr. Handelsman was the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor and Frederick Phineas Rose Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale University. She previously served on the University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty as a Professor in Plant Pathology and as Professor and Chair of the Department of Bacteriology.

Dr. Handelsman earned her B.S. from Cornell University and her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in molecular biology