Who We Are - Committee of Concerned Scientists

May 18, 2024
As now constituted, the Committee of Concerned Scientists enjoys the leadership of 9 Executive Committee members (co-chairs and vice-chairs), 14 Honorary Board Members, and an Advisory Board of scientists, physicians, engineers, and scholars.

Co-chairs

Joel L. Lebowitz, Rutgers University

Walter Reich, George Washington University

Eugene Chudnovsky, Lehman College

Alexander Greer, Brooklyn College

Executive Director

Alexandra R. Bender

Vice-chairs

Biology – Max E. Gottesman, Columbia University

Chemistry – Zafra Lerman, MIMSAD Inc.

Computer Science – Rachelle Heller, The George Washington University

Engineering – Philip Sarachik, NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering

Mathematics – Simon Levin, Princeton University

Past Co-chairs

Robert S. Adelstein, National Institutes of Health

Jack Cohen, Tel Aviv University

Max E. Gottesman, Columbia University

Mark Kac (deceased), University of Southern California

Peter S. Pershan, Harvard University

Fred Pollak (deceased), Brooklyn College

Paul H. Plotz (deceased), M.D., Washington, DC

H. Eugene Stanley, Boston University

Past Vice-chairs

Astronomy – Arno Penzias (deceased), New Enterprises Associates*

Computer Science – Jack Minker (deceased), University of Maryland

Medical Sciences – J. Joseph Blum (deceased), Duke University

Physics – Joseph Birman (deceased), City College of New York

Honorary Board Members

Nancy Andrews, Duke University

Myles Axton, Chief Editor, Genetics and Genomics Next
David Baltimore, California Institute of Technology*

Alan J. Bard, University of Texas

David Gross, University of California, Santa Barbara*

James Langer, University of California, Santa Barbara

Peter Lax, New York University

Giorgio Parisi, Roma I University La Sapienza

John C. Polanyi, University of Toronto*

Stuart Rice, University of Chicago

Sir Richard J. Roberts, New England Biolabs*

Maxine Singer, Carnegie Institution of Washington

Alfred I. Tauber, Boston University

Myrna Weissman, Columbia University

Former Honorary Board Members

Jacob Bigeleisen (deceased), SUNY, Stony Brook

Raoul Bott (deseased) Harvard University

Owen Chamberlain (deceased), University of California, Berkeley

Stanley Deser (deceased), Brandeis University

Edward Gerjuoy (deceased), University of Pittsburgh

Pierre Hohenberg (deceased), New York University

Walter Kohn (deceased), University of California, Santa Barbara*

Louis Nirenberg (deceased), New York University

Marshall Nirenberg (deceased), National Institutes of Health*

Myriam Sarachick (deceased), City College of New York

Harold Scheraga (deceased), Cornell University

Sylvan Schweber (deceased), Brandeis University

Steven Weinberg (deceased), University of Texas, Austin*

Rosalyn S. Yalow (deceased), Mount Sinai School of Medicine*

Advisory Board Members

Mark Alber, Notre Dame University

Bruce Alberts, University of California, San Francisco

Joan Birman, Barnard College

Marvin Bishop, Manhattan College

Sidney Bludman, University of Pennsylvania

Sylvain Cappell, New York University

Gregory Cherlin, Rutgers University

Milton Cole, Penn State University

Richard Ebright, Rutgers University

Xin-Yuan Fu, Indiana University

Azriel Genack, Queens College

James Griffin (deceased), University of Maryland

Robert B. Griffith, Carnegie Mellon University

Bertrand Halperin, Harvard University

B. Loerinc Helft, CUNY

Peter Hotez, Baylor College of Medicine

Andy Kent, New York University

Simon Levin, Princeton University

Walter Neumann, Columbia University

* Nobel laureate

Charles Newman, New York University

Peter Pershan, Harvard University

Murray Peshkin (deceased), Argonne National Laboratory

Gerald Porter, University of Pennsylvania

Daniel Prober, Yale University

Elisabeth Rachlew, Royal Institute of
Technology (KTH)

Ivor Robinson (deceased), University of Texas

Sidney Simon, Duke University

Thomas Spiro, University of Washington

Edward Stern, (deceased), University of Washington

Svetlana Stone Wachtell

Earl Taft (deceased), Rutgers University

Betty Tsang, Michigan State University

Norman Zabusky (deceased), Weizmann Institute

Executive Director

Alexandra R. Bender

Past Executive Directors

Carol Susan Valoris, Emerita

Suzanne Garment, Emerita

Dorothy Hirsch (deceased), Emerita

Sophie Cook, Emerita

Council of Young Scholars

The Council of Young Scholars is a branch of CCS made up of scholars, researchers and academics, who work under the co-chairs and help them run the organization, with a view on continuing its work in the long term. We follow individual cases of persecuted academics and propose them to the co-chairs. More specifically, our responsibilities include:

Writing letters on behalf of the co-chairs.
Assisting with reports for the annual meeting.
Coming up with new approaches and new directions to expand the mission of the CCS; in particular, its social media presence.
Encouraging new and younger members to join CCS to continue the line of continuity in leadership.

If you would like to get involved and/or send us tips about potential new cases, please reach out to the Executive Director, Alexandra Bender, at abender@concernedscientists.org.