Timmermann selected to serve on AAAS Committee of Council Affairs

LAWRENCE — Barbara Timmermann, University of Kansas Distinguished Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, has been elected to serve on the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Committee on Council Affairs.

AAAS seeks to advance science, engineering and innovation worldwide. The group was founded in 1848 and includes 254 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Its journal, Science, has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated 1 million readers.

Among her duties as a Committee on Council Affairs member, Timmermann will help review nominations and elections of AAAS Fellows, an honor bestowed annually upon scientists from the top of their respective fields.

KU School of Pharmacy Dean Ken Audus said Timmermann’s election to the prestigious committee is the result of her many years of not only accepting but welcoming professional challenges.

 “In addition to her many research accomplishments, Dr. Timmermann has continually stepped up when asked to serve the science community as a whole,” Audus said. “Her professional reputation, coupled with her willingness to give of her personal time, has justifiably earned her the utmost respect from her peers.”

Timmermann joined the KU School of Pharmacy faculty as a distinguished professor and served as chair of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry from 2005 to 2012. She is the director of the NIH-funded Center for Cancer Experimental Therapeutics. Since coming to KU, Timmermann has brought in more than $20 million in research funding.

She was one of four new members elected to serve on the committee, and her two-year term will begin Feb. 17 at the AAAS Annual Meeting in San Jose, California.