Dr. Schrass is the immediate past national president of GWIS and has served as national vice president.  She served as an officer in Omicron culminating in 2003 as chapter president.  The GWIS support of educating women in science is one of the things that she participates in.  In the past she has judged science fairs and currently participates in reviewing GWIS fellowship applications.  Dr. Schrass remains interested in memorializing our pioneer members in video and print format. Further, Dr. Schrass served as the past president of the National Association of Academic Affairs Administrators and currently sit on their board as the historian, as the University of Mary Washington (UMW) institutional representative to the Virginia Network of the American Council on Education, as a member of the editorial board of the NACADA Journal between 2003-2007, as the Assistant Dean, Student Academic Affairs, College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), George Mason University between 1997 and 2000 and as the advisor for George Mason University (GMU) chapter of the National Honor Society for Freshmen, Alpha Lambda Delta, and received the director's award for chapter advising.  Between 1991 and 1997 she did her graduate work at GMU and earned her Ph.D. in Environmental Biology and Public Policy with her dissertation titled "The Purification of a Coal Solubilizing Agent from Tremetes versicolor'. She currently serves as the Associate Dean of Academic Services at the UMW in Fredericksburg VA supervising three assistant deans and several program directors.  Her primary responsibility is adjudicating student requests for exceptions to University policy.  Further, she oversees the UMW undergraduate, faculty advising programs including the First-Year Advising Program that she implemented in the fall of 2005 and a more recent program to advise transfer students prior to their matriculation.  She is also the chair of the Committee on Academic Standing that reviews students for reinstatement or readmission.   In 2008 she received the Outstanding Alumni of the Year Award from the GMU College of Science.  She currently teaches introductory Biology at UMW and serves as a discussant for the Student Research Forum for Women's History month. Prior to her doctoral work she marketed scientific equipment, married the man of her dreams, David Hill, raised two incredible sons, Jonathon and Nathaniel.  In her spare time she designs and constructs wedding dresses (and lesser garments as well) for special friends, teaches religious education for her parish, raises building fund pledges for that same parish, breeds Himalayan cats and perfects the art of Christmas Cookie baking and decorating which she now shares with her eight grandchildren.  In good weather Dr. Schrass enjoys digging in the dirt in Schrassic Park, her garden, where she also weeds her thoughts.  

President-Elect: Madhu Lal Ph.D. (Omicron Chapter)

Post doctoral research scientist at the National Institutes of Health  

Dr. Lal is the current Secretary of the OMICRON Chapter and the National Vice Presidentof GWIS. She joined GWIS with the goal of supporting its mission to further the involvement and position of women in science. As National Vice President, she strongly urges women to think outside the box, dare to dream BIG and to identify and pursue the many opportunities that exist in the world of science today. Her goal is to encourage graduate women in science to grow and benefit both personally as well as professionally from the mentoring and networking opportunities that GWIS provides. Dr. Lal is a scientific professional with over 6 years experience in the area of cancer research and targeted therapies. Her primary expertise lies in being able to bridge the gap between the business and the research aspects of cutting edge science. With this end in mind she completed her doctorate in molecular and cellular oncology and is currently doing her postdoctoral translational oncology research in the area of ovarian cancer. She completed a professional Masters in Bioscience degree awarded by the Keck Graduate Institute and her professional work experience at Allergan, Inc. as a clinical research associate intern and at Beckman Coulter, Inc. as an intern in the oncology business division armed her with the ability to study and understand the nature and landscape of the market for both biologics and diagnostics. Her goal is to leverage both her scientific expertise and business mindset in the area of preclinical and clinical research and development.

Research Assistant, University of Wisconsin-Madison Geoscience Department

Ms. Hill has served as the Vice President and President of the Beta Chapter and is currently its Website Coordinator. Ms. Hill aspires to be an active contributor to the management of GWIS because she believes that the organization promotes key values that are important to her. She looks forward to the opportunity to share a commitment to women in science, active involvement in an extended community, and building quality relationships and wishes to use her role to promote mentoring relationships between established professionals and graduate students, and is also interested in improving the evolving relationship between academics and their graduate students, changing the quality of the academic work environment. She has a diverse background beginning as a restaurant manager, historian, archaeologist, and finally becoming geoscientist.  Excursions into other areas have helped her define her focus to geology and broaden her perspective tackling scientific problems from various angles-most recently on the nano-scale.  She is reading for a dissertation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison conducting mineral research in the nanogeoscience lab utilizing high resolution and scanning transmission electron microscopy to characterize the crystallography and properties of minerals at the nano-scale in ultra-high pressure metamorphic rocks.  Her previous careers taught her exceptional communication and rapport-building skills, and given her the ability to communicate her research to the general public. She is a strongly self-motivated, persistent, and self-directed person, always seeking to expand her knowledge base and gain new experiences.   Ms. Hill has enjoyed teaching and researching, leading her to seek a future career as a professor in academia teaching mineralogy and petrology.

Treasurer: Kelly Mercier, Ph.D.

Dr. Mercier is a founding member of the Rho Tau Chapter that began in June 2009 and since then has served as its secretary and president and currently she serves in the capacity of an andvisor. She wishes to serve as the National GWIS treasurer to assist the national organization through service.  As a past fellowship awardee, she feels indebted to GWIS for supporting her during her graduate studies and hopes that her service will inspire other past-awardees to give their time to this great organization in the future. Dr. Mercier grew up in Phoenix, AZ, and attended Lake Forest College in IL, earning her BA in chemistry. She had internships in Illinois, Rhode Island, and Tennessee before working for Roche in CA and then attending graduate school at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, NE. Her research was focused on structural biology and functional annotation by NMR spectroscopy, earning a Ph.D in chemistry in 2008 and a GWIS Eloise Gerry fellowship in 2006. She currently holds a IRTA postdoctoral fellowship position at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, continuing her work in structural biology with an emphasis of functional assignments of unknown proteins or protein domains. Dr. Mercier is also a military wife and the mother of 2 beautiful sons.