Richard A. Durst, professor emeritus of chemistry in the Department of Food Science and Technology at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, N.Y., and adjunct Cornell professor in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering, was elected president of the Society for Electroanalytical Chemistry (SEAC) July 1. He will serve 2009-2011.

SEAC promotes advances in basic and applied research in electroanalysis and gives two awards annually, including the Reilley Award, whose 2008 recipient is Hector Abruña, chair of Cornell's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.

Durst was also recently appointed to the Chemical Research Applied to World Needs (CHEMRAWN) Committee of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), where he will help foster chemical research focused on world needs; and to the Editorial Advisory Board of the European Academy of Sciences, where he will edit the academy's 2008-09 annals.

Durst studies the application of biological recognition and liposomal amplification strategies to develop novel biosensing devices for the detection of clinical analytes, environmental pollutants, chemical and biological warfare agents and food contaminants.

He was nominated by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences to serve on the CHEMRAWN committee; and elected a member of the European Academy of Sciences and a fellow of IUPAC in 2002. He joined the Cornell faculty in 1990.