APS Announces New Leadership for the Coming Year

Philadelphia (April 5, 2022)—The American Physiological Society (APS) is pleased to announce its new member leaders: President Dee U. Silverthorn, PhD, FAPS, FAAA, FAAAS; President-elect Willis K. “Rick” Samson, PhD, DSc, FAPS; and Councilors Heddwen Brooks, PhD; Nisha Charkoudian, PhD; and Evangeline Motley-Johnson, PhD. The new officers were elected by APS membership and took office April 5, 2022, at the APS annual meeting at Experimental Biology in Philadelphia. 

Dee U. Silverthorn, PhD, FAPS, FAAA, FAAAS, is a Distinguished Teaching Professor of Physiology emerita in the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin. She earned her doctorate in marine science from the University of South Carolina. 

Silverthorn has served the Society on the APS Council, as past chair and secretary of the Teaching of Physiology Section and as a past representative to the Joint Program Committee. She was editor-in-chief of Advances in Physiology Education from 2001 to 2007 and is a past chair of the eBook Committee. Silverthorn also served on the Team 2023 Task Force, a group of APS member leaders involved in the development of the Society’s new annual meeting—the American Physiology Summit. She continues to be involved in the planning of this event.  

Silverthorn is a past recipient of the APS Guyton Educator Award, The Physiological Society’s Otto Hutter Teaching Prize, the University of Texas Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award and has received numerous other local and national teaching awards. She was an inaugural Fellow of the APS (FAPS) in 2015 and is also a Fellow of the American Association of Anatomy (AAA) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). 

Willis K. “Rick” Samson, PhD, DSc, FAPS, is professor of pharmacology and physiology and director of biomedical science graduate programs in the School of Medicine at Saint Louis University (SLU). He earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina; his PhD from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas; and his DSc from Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. Samson is the vice chair of the SLU School of Medicine’s Pharmacology and Physiology Department and a member of SLU’s COVID-19 Task Force. He serves on study sections and editorial boards for a number of scientific organizations and journals. 

Samson served the Society on the APS Council from 2016 to 2019 and was a member of the Joint Program and Public Affairs committees as well as the Committee on Committees. He is also a former member of the Endocrinology and Metabolism Section Steering Committee and is a current member of the APS Fellows Committee. Samson is a past associate editor and editor-in-chief for the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology and is currently deputy editor of Physiological Reviews.  

Heddwen Brooks, PhD, is a professor of physiology and past chair of the Physiological Sciences Graduate Program at the University of Arizona. She earned her doctorate from Imperial College, London, U.K.  

Brooks is editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Physiology-Renal Physiology. She has served APS as a former chair of the Renal Section; a member of the Section Advisory and Education committees; and as a past member of the Committee on Committees. Brooks was also Joint Programming Committee representative for the Sex and Gender Interest Group. She has served as faculty for APS professional skills training workshop Writing and Reviewing for Scientific Journals and as associate editor of the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. She serves on study sections for the American Heart Association, Veterans Affairs and National Institutes of Health. Brooks’ research examines sex differences in hypertension, diabetes and the immune system.  

Nisha Charkoudian, PhD, is a research physiologist at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in Natick, Massachusetts. She received her PhD in physiology from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. She completed postdoctoral training at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.  

Charkoudian has served on the editorial boards of several APS journals and is a past associate editor of the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology. She currently serves as a consulting editor for American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology podcasts. She has published over 140 articles in peer-reviewed publications, many in APS publications. 

Evangeline Motley-Johnson, PhD, is the interim dean of the School of Graduate Studies and Research and a professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Physiology at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. She received her PhD from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and pursued her postdoctoral training at the University of Cincinnati.  

Motley-Johnson is a former APS Porter Development Fellow and is a past member of the Porter Committee (now the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee) and the Trainee Committee of the Cardiovascular Section. She has served on National Institutes of Health review panels and is a past member of the Student Affairs and Minority Affairs committees of the Endocrine Society. 

NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: For more information, please contact APS Media Relations or 301.634.7314.  

Physiology is a broad area of scientific inquiry that focuses on how molecules, cells, tissues and organs function in health and disease. The American Physiological Society connects a global, multidisciplinary community of more than 10,000 biomedical scientists and educators as part of its mission to advance scientific discovery, understand life and improve health. The Society drives collaboration and spotlights scientific discoveries through its 16 scholarly journals and programming that support researchers and educators in their work.