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Dr. Susan Meschwitz, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry, has been elected chairwoman of the Rhode Island section of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society. She will serve a two-year term beginning this month.

Established in 1891, the Rhode Island section includes approximately 550 members, ranging from faculty and students at the state’s colleges and universities to scientists from local companies such as Amgen, Alexion, Rhodes Pharmaceuticals and Teknor Apex. Members work on a wide array of projects throughout the community to help foster interest in the chemical sciences and to maintain lifelong learning in a such a broad field.

Meschwitz joined the Salve Regina community in 2012. She holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Stonehill College and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Brown University.

Her research focuses on organic molecules that have the potential to impact modern medicine. The long-term objective is to discover molecules capable of inhibiting quorum sensing, a communication system upon which many pathogenic bacteria rely. Meschwitz’s ongoing research is exploring two areas for the discovery of these compounds: design and synthesis in the laboratory and isolation from natural products.

Dr. Theresa Ladrigan-Whelpley, the director of Bannan Institutes at Santa Clara University’s Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education, has been appointed vice president for mission integration at Salve Regina. She will begin her new role July 2.

Ladrigan-Whelpley comes to Salve Regina with extensive experience developing thematic university programs that engage important topics within the Catholic intellectual tradition, emphasizing dialogue and interdisciplinary exchange across diverse campus constituents.

In the six years she has served as director of Bannan Institutes, its innovative, strategic and collaborative programming has expanded to include not only a quarterly lectures series, composite courses, seminars, grants and an annual journal, but also interdisciplinary faculty research and teaching collaboratives, a faculty podcast series, conferences, days of reflection and a growing array of online resources.

“Dr. Ladrigan-Whelpley’s commitment and expertise in creating programs and addressing matters of significance within the Catholic intellectual tradition made her especially qualified for this position,” said President Jane Gerety, RSM. “Dr. Ladrigan-Whelpley has also studied mercy spirituality extensively and will continue her immersion in mercy as she sees it lived out here at Salve Regina.”

Ladrigan-Whelpley says serving as the vice president for mission integration at Salve offers her an extraordinary opportunity to deepen her own vocational commitments, which have been inspired by and enlivened by the charism of mercy.

“It is a privilege for me to join the Salve Regina University community,” she said. “Salve’s transformative mission ‘to work for a world that is harmonious, just and merciful’ is an animating call today more than ever. I am excited to partner with so many thoughtful, engaged and committed students, faculty, staff, administrators, community partners, board members and alumni to collaboratively advance our mission in service to the needs of our world.”

Ladrigan-Whelpley says the founding mercy, Catholic charism and spirit of the University lives on today in dynamically expressive ways in the classroom, campus and community. “I look forward to discerning together with all at Salve how we can continue to grow our mission through the intellectual, social and spiritual life of the University,” she said.

In addition to her work in the Ignatian Center at Santa Clara, Ladrigan-Whelpley currently serves as adjunct lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at Santa Clara and on the boards of the Silicon Valley Interreligious Council and the Lane Center Series, Joan and Ralph Lane Center for Catholic Studies and Social Thought at the University of San Francisco. She also served for the past two years as co-chair for the Mission and Identity Conference of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.

Ladrigan-Whelpley earned her bachelor’s degree in biology, honors at Villanova University, her master of divinity from Candler School of Theology at Emory University, and her doctorate in Christian spirituality from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.

Faculty and staff are invited to participate in an hour-long Green Dot training session, which will provide education on the Green Dot program and power-based personal violence prevention on campus.

The training session will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 10 in the O’Hare Academic Building, Room 103. To register, visit the Eventbrite page.

A national violence prevention program, Green Dot was implemented at Salve Regina in 2016 with the initial training of 22 staff members as certified instructors. Green Dot is a comprehensive approach to power-based personal violence prevention that capitalizes on the power of peer and cultural influences.

The program targets all community members as potential bystanders, and seeks to engage them through awareness, education, and skills-practice. Green Dot training seeks to reduce incidents of sexual assault, dating/domestic violence and stalking on campus.

Students, faculty and staff are trained in bystander techniques and skills, to aid in the prevention of violence both on and off campus. A “green dot” is defined as any behavior, choice, word or attitude that counters or displaces a “red dot” of violence.