Nicholas Peppas has been elected president of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society, an international society for science and engineering. His three-year term began on July 1, 2021, and Peppas will help lead the organization’s continued focused on core goals of enhancing the health of the research enterprise, fostering integrity in science and engineering, and promoting the public's understanding of science.
Peppas is a professor in the Cockrell School’s McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering and Department of Biomedical Engineering and holds appointments in the Dell Medical School and the College of Pharmacy.
His research focuses on biomaterials, biomolecular engineering, drug delivery, mathematics and simulations of biological and drug/tissue processes, engineering design of novel biological active systems, polymer physics and biomedical engineering. In recent months he has published about 15 papers, including research studies on delivery systems for siRNA-based therapeutics and the future of RNA-based therapies for the treatment of certain types of cancers as well as autoimmune diseases.
“I am honored to have been elected president-elect of Sigma Xi, a society where I have been active for 48 years," Peppas said. "During my administration I want to increase the Sigma Xi membership with emphasis on retaining young members. I will promote active and effective local chapters; I will actively support diversity, equity and inclusivity at all level of the organization; I will establish specialty webinars and meetings on 'hot topics'; and I will institute new methods to educate the public and the press on science."
Peppas has co-edited 37 books and has published more than 1,650 publications with 160,000 citations in the fields biomaterials, drug delivery, nanotechnology and regenerative medicine. He joined The University of Texas at Austin faculty in 2003 and served as chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering from 2009 to 2015. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors, the International Academy of BME and The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas. He is also a member of the European, Chinese, Korean, Indian, Canadian, French, Spanish and Greek Academies of Engineering or Science. He has received honorary doctorates from Italy, Greece (four), Belgium, Slovenia and Spain, and other recognitions from Italy, Germany, China and Japan. He is very active in education, having taught more than 4,100 students and supervised just over 1,000 researchers in 45 years.
Sigma Xi is one of the largest and oldest scientific organizations in the world, with more than 70,000 members. In its 136 years, more than 200 Nobel Prize winners have been members. Peppas has been a member of Sigma Xi since 1973 and is a recipient of the 2019 Sigma Xi Monie A. Ferst Award. The University of Texas at Austin Chapter has been a part of the organization since 1915.
