September 2021
October 2021
Dear Link Foundation Friends:
Well, we have put another challenging year behind us. I can’t help but think of Yogi Berra’s saying "it’s like déjà vu all over again" when reflecting on this past year. Unfortunately, for the second year in a row, both Link Foundation board meetings were held via Zoom and we missed the chance to celebrate, together, the many wonderful achievements of the students supported through various Link Foundation programs and funding. However, the optimistic side of that information is that we have much to celebrate at the Link Foundation.
The continuation of the Link Foundation’s long tradition of funding PhD student research in energy, simulation and ocean engineering, is both reassuring and a source of great pride to all of us here at the foundation. With global crises on several fronts, advances in science, engineering and technology are more critical than ever. Scientific solutions to these challenges are only a few of the areas in which Link fellows are conducting research, including the development of novel "green" energy devices to harvest electricity from ambient humidity; understanding optoelectronic processes within semitransparent organic photovoltaics to expand possibilities for integrated energy harvesting; and resolving the oxygen budget of water bodies to better understand hypoxia dynamics in coastal regions. Additionally, we are delighted to note the Harbor Branch/FAU’s Summer Intern Program completed a successful year after a hiatus due to COVID (during Summer 2020). As the student interns may one day develop solutions to the challenges facing our oceans and waterways, the Link Foundation is proud to support these future leaders. Across all of its many programs over the years, the Link Foundation has proudly awarded nearly 18 million dollars to advance energy, simulation and ocean explorations.
As the Link Foundation continues to move forward with its initiatives, we have new trustees to welcome: Mr. James "Ed" Morton IV and Mr. James Van Voorst. We look forward to working with Ed, Senior Vice President and Regional Executive with Chemung Canal Trust Company, as our new Treasurer. Ed replaces Mr. Douglas R. Johnson as Treasurer, and it is hard to imagine the financial success of the Link Foundation without simultaneously thinking "Doug Johnson." His long-time and trusted financial leadership spanned his friendship with Marilyn Link, and his sage financial advice has enabled the Link Foundation to gain in prestige and standing among educational support programs in energy, oceans and simulation. We are delighted he has chosen to remain an active member of the Link Foundation, as his consultation and leadership can continue long into the future.
Jim Van Voorst, former interim Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration with the State University of New York (SUNY), and former Vice President of Finance at Binghamton University and SUNY Albany over the course of his esteemed career, is the Link Foundation’s Secretary. Jim replaces Dr. Thomas Kelly who served as Secretary after retiring as the Chair of the Link Foundation in 2020. His tremendous leadership of the Link Foundation has ensured the foundation can impact world-class scientific research far into the future. We are also delighted that Dr. Kelly has chosen to remain an active member of the Link Foundation and appreciate his continued service.
Finally, we welcome Dr. Margaret Loper, Associate Director of the Institute for Information Security & Privacy (IISP) for the area of trust research, and chief scientist of the Georgia Tech Research Institute's Information and Communications Laboratory (ICL), as the new Modeling, Simulation and Training (MS&T) Fellowship Program Administrator. An esteemed expert in the area of computational trust algorithms for machine-to-machine communications, and a former Link Fellow, Dr. Loper begins with a strong understanding of the importance of research funding. She replaces Dr. Donna Wilt, who is retiring after leading the program for a decade, where she brought significant prestige and growth to the MS&T program. We are grateful Dr. Wilt has agreed to stay engaged with the Link Foundation as well, and we wish her well in her retirement from academia.
In closing, we hope this letter finds all of you in good health and looking forward to the day that we can all congregate again with family and friends, safely unmasked and out of a pandemic. In the meantime, take care of each other and know that we appreciate your continued support of the efforts of the Link Foundation in producing tomorrow’s scientists and solutions for our challenging world.
Sincerely,
Shelley D. Dionne, Ph.D.
Chair of the Board of Trustees and Special Advisors
The Link Foundation