Nancy Ryan Gray is the current President and Chief Executive Officer of the Gordon Research Conferences. Nancy received her B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of Notre Dame and her Ph.D. in Fuel Chemistry from The Pennsylvania State University. Prior to joining GRC, she served as the Director of Membership at the American Chemical Society and as a Research Specialist in Organic Chemistry at Exxon Production Research Company. Nancy has served on the Board of Directors of Ligand Pharmaceuticals since August 2017. Ligand is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing or acquiring technologies that help pharmaceutical companies in drug discover and early-stage drug development, and product reformulation. She has also served on the Board of Directors of Slater Technology Fund since March 2021. Slater is a not-for-profit seed fund dedicated to supporting new technology ventures founded by entrepreneurs to build companies that aim to achieve transformational impact in the industries or markets they serve. During her tenure as President and CEO at GRC, Nancy established and expanded the growing Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) initiative, a two-day meeting designed specifically for early career scientists to present and discuss research and build collaborative relationships with colleagues, empowering graduate students and postdocs to more fully share in the GRC experience. She is also recognized for founding the GRC Power Hour initiative as a forum for conversations to promote discussion and address the challenges all scientists face in their careers. Nancy is the recipient of the 2013 Providence Business News Industry Leader Award for Non-Profit Organizations, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the American Chemical Society. She also received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Colby-Sawyer College in 2019 for her leadership and commitment to Gordon Research Conferences and the scientific community.