Past President

Roy Okuda is from Hilo, Hawaii. He received his B.A. from the University of California at San Diego (Chemistry & Biology) (1979) and his Ph.D. from Univ. Hawaii (Chemistry) (1983). He did his postdoctoral research under Koji Nakanishi at Columbia University in 1985. As a new assistant professor in 1985 he attended his first ASP at the University of North Carolina where Koji Nakanishi received the first ASP Research Achievement Award. Afterwards Koji told Roy “this is a good society, you should get involved.” Roy has been involved ever since. According to Roy, the award of an ASP Research Starter Grant in 1986 to research halo-peroxidases from marine algae provided results that led, directly or indirectly, to seven NIH or NSF grants. Over the last 27 years, he recalls, only missing one meeting, and he has presented over 15 posters and oral presentations at these meetings. In addition, he has organized two past ASP meetings, in 1987 at the Univ. Rhode Island and 1996 at UC Santa Cruz. Also, he is organizing the 2009 ASP 50th Anniversary Meeting to be held in Honolulu. He is planning a number of activities to commemorate this significant milestone in ASP’s history. During his tenure as ASP President, he helped to establish the archives with the Lloyd Library, which he notes allows “the history of ASP to be properly preserved.” He also worked hard to get the younger members move involved in the Society. (Scott Baggett)