About ASMS

About Secretary

The Secretary serves a two-year term. Duties and responsibilities include:

  1. Is the official ASMS record keeper;
  2. Shall record all votes and minutes of all meetings of the Board of Directors and all general meetings of the Society;
  3. Shall perform such other duties as may be prescribed by the Board of Directors or the President;
  4. Monitors online the balloting results for the annual Board election;
  5. Coordinates meetings and proceedings of the Committee for selection of the Award for Distinguished Contribution and the Biemann Medal;
  6. Along with Past President, updates By-laws and Board policies documents after each Board meeting.

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

Candidates for Secretary

Anderton, Christopher R

Christopher R. Anderton

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Candidate Statement
Some of the most important work in a scientific society happens out of view: keeping accurate records, maintaining clear governance, and running fair Board elections. Through my service on ASMS committees, as President of the International Mass Spectrometry Imaging Society (IMSIS)–Americas, and as a liaison during the merger that created IMSIS-Global, I have seen how much this work underpins a community’s trust. I would be honored to serve as Secretary, documenting the Board’s decisions clearly, keeping our bylaws and policies current, monitoring the online balloting for the annual Board election, and coordinating the selection of ASMS’s highest honors with rigor and integrity.

Christopher R. Anderton, B.S. in Chemistry (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, with David J. Weiss), Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, with Mary L. Kraft), NRC Postdoctoral Associate (National Institute of Standards and Technology, with Anne L. Plant), Postdoctoral Research Associate (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, with Ljiljana Paša-Tolić). Dr. Anderton is currently a Chief Scientist and Mass Spectrometry Imaging Capability Lead at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL), a U.S. Department of Energy user facility at PNNL in Richland, Washington, where he also leads the Microbial Biotechnology Campaign. From 2025 to 2026, he served as EMSL’s Interim Chief Science Officer.

Dr. Anderton’s research develops multimodal mass spectrometry imaging and spatial omics approaches to map a variety of biomolecules in human tissues, plants, and environmental microbiomes. His approaches leverage multiple ionization techniques (e.g., MALDI, SIMS, LAESI, and nano-DESI) for MS imaging coupled with ultrahigh-resolution FTICR and ion mobility MS. He currently leads PNNL’s efforts in the NIH Kidney Precision Medicine Project as well as several DOE-funded projects, has coauthored more than 110 peer-reviewed publications, and serves on the editorial board of mSystems.

An ASMS member since 2014, Dr. Anderton has served on the Publications Committee (2019–2021), where he created the ASMS Twitter account, and on the Asilomar and Small Conference Committees (2023–2026). He co-organized the annual conference workshop on advances in 2D and 3D mass spectrometry from 2017 to 2019 and co-chaired a pre-Asilomar workshop on imaging data analysis in 2019. He has also reviewed regularly for JASMS since 2014. Beyond ASMS, he is President of IMSIS–Americas (formerly the Imaging Mass Spectrometry Society) and Vice President of the IMSIS-Global, and he chaired the Plant Cell Atlas Metabolomics Committee.

Chowdhury, Saiful M

Saiful M. Chowdhury

University of Texas at Arlington

Candidate Statement
ASMS has been an important part of my scientific journey since I joined in 2004, providing opportunities to build lasting friendships, collaborations, and professional connections. I have enjoyed giving back to the Society through my service as an Interest Group Coordinator, workshop organizer, session chair, and member of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. It would be an honor to serve as Secretary of the ASMS Board and continue supporting the Society that has given me so much while helping keep ASMS a welcoming and vibrant community for all its members.

Saiful M. Chowdhury earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Applied Chemistry from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, followed by an M.S. from Florida International University and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Washington State University under the supervision of Professor James E. Bruce. He completed his postdoctoral training at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) with Dr. Richard D. Smith and at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS/NIH) with Dr. Michael B. Fessler. He is currently a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA).

Dr. Chowdhury's research focuses on developing innovative mass spectrometry-based technologies to better understand protein interactions, structural changes, and post-translational modifications. He has pioneered several innovative crosslinking technologies, including an alkyne-tagged enrichment-based crosslinker, dual-cleavable chemical crosslinking technology (DUCCT), ETD-cleavable crosslinker, and spacer-restricted affinity purification crosslinking mass spectrometry (SPACC-AP-MS), as well as a unique mass spectrometry-based method for distinguishing different types of protein prenylation. His current research investigates protein interactions and their roles in regulating immune signaling, particularly in inflammation-related diseases. His research has received support from federal agencies, including the NIH and NSF. He also enjoys mentoring students and early-career scientists, helping them develop their research skills and advance their scientific careers.

Dr. Chowdhury has been an active member of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) since 2004 and has enjoyed contributing to the Society in various roles. He has served as an Interest Group Coordinator for Covalent Labeling and Chemical Crosslinking, organized workshops, chaired scientific sessions, reviewed abstracts, and served on the ASMS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. He is also a member of the US Human Proteome Organization (US HUPO), and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB). He will be joining the editorial board of Insights of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IBMB), an ASBMB journal, starting in December 2026. He regularly reviews manuscripts for leading analytical chemistry and proteomics journals and has served as a reviewer for international research funding agencies.

 

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