Ligand Pharmaceuticals announced the appointment of Nancy Ryan Gray, Ph.D. to the company’s Board of Directors. Gray currently serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Gordon Research Conferences, a not-for-profit organization that arranges conferences in the biological, chemical, and physical sciences worldwide. Gray’s appointment increases the number of Ligand directors to eight.
“Nancy is a dynamic and extremely well-connected executive who will bolster Ligand’s relationships with the scientific community and provide a valuable perspective as we advance our Shots-on-Goal business model,” said John Kozarich, Chairman of Ligand. “We welcome her to the Ligand board of directors.”
Prior to joining Gordon Research Conferences in 2003, Dr. Gray was with the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Washington, D.C., the world’s largest scientific society, most recently as Director of Membership. She also was the liaison to the Board Committee on Grants and Awards and the Council Committee on Nominations and Elections, and was responsible for the ACS national election process. Prior to joining the ACS, Nancy spent nine years as a Senior Research Scientist at Exxon/Mobil Research and Engineering (formerly Exxon Production Research) in Houston.
Gray is 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.
Gray received a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. in Fuel Chemistry from The Pennsylvania State University. She was a Research Fellow at the Foundation on Matter Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics in Amsterdam, and completed the Harvard Executive Education Finance for Senior Executives program. She also has authored or co-authored numerous scientific articles.