As most of you know, our much beloved and respected president Dr. Carolyn Cousin stepped down at the March 2009, 66th Annual NIS board meeting. She will continue to play a very active role as a board member, outgoing president and most importantly as the principal investigator of the T-36 grant for organization and student participation at the annual NIS/BKX meetings. We are extremely pleased and welcome Mrs. Sherry Corbin Gibson as the newly elected President of the National Institute of Science (NIS). Ms. Gibson received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Biology/Physiology from Southern University (SU) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Her thesis research was in the area of oxygen uptake in bovine sperm.

    In 1977, she began working at Louisiana State University (LSU) Veterinary School in the Electron Microscopy (EM) Center. As a Research Associate and a certified Electron Microscopy Technologist, her expertise was invaluable to many of the researchers and graduate students. In 1994, Mrs. Gibson returned to Southern University- BR, as an instructor in the Biology Department and a Senior Research Associate through an NIH grant for Research Centers for Minority Institutes (RCMI). She directed the construction of the Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) Facility, maintained the existing Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) Facility, provided expertise and training to research scientist on the relevance of the use of EM in their research areas and taught the Electron Microscopy courses to graduate students. Mrs. Gibson transitioned to Baton Rouge Community College (BRCC) in 1998, when they first opened their doors. At the College she has served on many Departmental, Division and College-wide Committees and made major contributions on each. She was awarded the NISOD award in 2004 for Teaching Excellence and became Associate Dean of the Mathematics and Science Division from 2004 through the present. Dean Gibson is the BRCC Coordinator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Professor Program with LSU.