About ASMS

About Member-at-Large for Membership

The Member-at-Large (MAL) for Membership serves a two-year term. Duties and responsibilities include:

  1. Chairs the Membership Committee and serves as liaison to the Board;
  2. Coordinates activities and projects that promote inclusion and participation of ASMS members from diverse cultural, gender, social and scientific backgrounds;
  3. Recommends initiatives to support career development;

Return to Board of Directors Election page to learn about other roles and their nominees.

Candidates for Member-at-Large Membership

MAL Membership - Ruth Marfil-Vega Photo

Ruth Marfil-Vega

Shimadzu Scientific Instruments

Candidate Statement
It would be an honor to serve on the ASMS Board of Directors as the Member-at-Large for Membership. A mentor once advised me not to be afraid of pivoting in my career but to always keep an anchor in place to help with the transitions. During my two decades working with industry, government and academic institutions, mass spectrometry has always been my anchor. I hope to bring my experience to drive ASMS efforts to support diversity among the current and future members, as well as the inclusion of diverse emerging scientific ideas, varied backgrounds and fostering collaborative efforts in mass spectrometry.

Ruth Marfil-Vega, B.S. in Chemistry (University of Valladolid, Spain); Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Engineering (University of Cincinnati; Professor Makram Suidan); ORISE Post-doctoral Fellow (US Environmental Protection Agency). Dr. Ruth Marfil-Vega worked as a scientist for the US EPA while completing her graduate studies. After finishing her postdoc, Ruth established and led the Emerging Contaminants R&D team at American Water for over five years before joining Shimadzu Scientific Instruments (SSI) in 2018. Ruth is currently the Senior Market Manager at SSI in Columbia, MD.

Dr. Marfil-Vega’s scientific interests focus on applying mass spectrometry and other analytical techniques to study the occurrence, fate, and impact of emerging and regulated contaminants in the environment on human health and ecosystems. During her 20-year career working with diverse stakeholders, she has helped integrate the outcomes from chemical analysis into comprehensive and actionable plans with diverse aims, such as risk management of contaminants, optimization, and standardization of R&D analytical methods for routine analyses, and development and improvement of analytical instrumentation. Her work has resulted in an extensive list of publications, contributions to book chapters, and presentations at national and international conferences. 

Dr. Marfil-Vega has chaired sessions at the ASMS annual conference and is currently a co-presider of the Exposomics Interest Group. She also co-organized and led the first symposium on high-resolution mass spectrometry for environmental applications at ACS – Division of Environmental Chemistry for five consecutive years. She is actively involved in different leadership roles in the American Water Works Association (Organic Contaminants and Water Quality Laboratory Practices Committees) and as a project advisory committee member for The Water Research Foundation, where she advises on analytical chemistry. She is also the co-chair of the international consensus-based working group Best Practices 4 Non-Targeted Analysis (BP4NTA); under her leadership, the group has doubled the number of members, diversified the membership base, and strengthened its position as the group of reference for Non-Targeted Analysis in North America.

 
MAL Membership - Asher Newsome photo

G. Asher Newsome

Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute

Candidate Statement
ASMS is the most important organization to me, professionally and personally. I have attended the annual conference every year since 2007, and it has been an honor to serve the society which has so supported me. As Member-At-Large for Membership I would lead new and continuing efforts to support accessibility, diversity, and mentorship, for the benefit of all members.

G. Asher Newsome, B.S. Chem (University of Georgia); Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with Professor Gary Glish); ORISE Postdoctoral Fellow (US FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition with Dr. John Callahan and Dr. Peter Scholl); Senior Staff Scientist (Nova Research, Inc., contractor to US Naval Research Laboratory). Dr. Newsome is currently a Physical Scientist with the Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute in Suitland, MD, USA.

Although he has background in MS instrumentation fundamentals, aerosols, food allergen LCMS, and explosives research, Dr. Newsome’s current research interests center on the development of mass spectrometry methods for conservation and cultural heritage applications. He most often employs ambient MS, GCMS, and other techniques for small molecule analysis. He delights in instrument design and modification to accommodate the study of materials and objects with exceptional characteristics such as large physical size, cultural sensitivity, or unavailability for destructive sampling. In his career in government labs, he has over twenty-five publications and a patent.

Dr. Newsome co-founded the ASMS Ambient Sampling and Ionization interest group. He has served on the ASMS History Committee, creating several posters relating to society membership. At recent ASMS meetings he has organized evening workshops on Art, Museums & Archaeology and Ambient Ionization; chaired an oral session; and led a meeting of local MS discussion groups. Dr. Newsome has also been continually involved with the leadership of the Washington-Baltimore Mass Spectrometry Discussion Group since 2013, serving as co-chair, secretary, or board member. Dr. Newsome is a member of and symposium organizer for the American Chemical Society and participates in the IPERION Heritage Science consortium.

 
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