Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society () is a highly prestigious,

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

honor society In the United States, an honor society is a rank organization that recognizes excellence among peers. Numerous societies recognize various fields and circumstances. The Order of the Arrow, for example, is the National Honor Society of the Boy Sc ...

for scientists and engineers. Sigma Xi was founded at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to ...

by a junior faculty member and a small group of graduate students in 1886, making it one of the oldest honor societies. Membership in Sigma Xi is by invitation only, where members nominate others on the basis of their research achievements or potential. Sigma Xi goals aim to honor excellence in scientific investigation and encourage cooperation among researchers in all fields of science and engineering.

Information about

Sigma Xi has nearly 100,000 members who were elected to membership based on their research achievements and potential. It has more than 500 chapters in North America and around the world. In addition to publishing '' American Scientist'' magazine, Sigma Xi provides grants annually to promising young researchers and sponsors a variety of programs supporting

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ...

research Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness t ...

science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

and

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. ...

, the public understanding of

, international research cooperation and the overall health of the research enterprise. The Society is based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Sigma Xi was one of six honor societies that co-founded the ACHS on . Its participation was short lived, with the decision to withdraw and operate again as an independent society made just over a decade later, effective in . Today, Sigma Xi participates in a more loosely coordinated lobbying association of four of the nation's oldest and most prestigious honor societies, called the Honor Society Caucus. Its members include

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

, Phi Kappa Phi, Sigma Xi, and Omicron Delta Kappa.

Motto and name

The

Greek letters The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as w ...

Sigma Sigma (; uppercase Σ, lowercase σ, lowercase in word-final position ς; grc-gre, σίγμα) is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 200. In general mathematics, uppercase Σ is used ...

" and " Xi" form the acronym of the Society's motto, or "Spoudon Xynones," which translates as "Companions in Zealous Research." The word 'Honor' was added to the name of the Society at the 2016 Annual Meeting.Guidotti, TL
''Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society''
Keyed In Blog. 13 December 2016. According to Sigma Xi President Tee L. Guidotti,

"Sigma Xi, of course, is our basic name and has been since the organization was founded in 1886 as the scientific and engineering counterpart to Phi Beta Kappa. Like all “Greek letter” societies, whether professional or social, it is an acronym for the motto of the organization, (Spoudon Xynones), which translates as "companions in Zealous Research." For many years, we were referred to as “Society of the Sigma Xi.” In the early twentieth century, some in the leadership wanted “Sigma Xi” to be dropped altogether in favor of some formulation such as “Scientific Research Society of America.” In a strange quirk of history, both names survived because the organization split in the 1940s into an academic honor society (Sigma Xi) and an honor society for applied research and engineering (the Scientific Research Society of America, called RESA). RESA was a separate entity, wholly owned by Sigma Xi, and represented engineers and scientists at non-academic institutions, such as government and industrial research laboratories. In an even stranger development, Sigma Xi and RESA merged back together in 1974 and eventually began calling itself Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society."

William Procter Prize

The William Procter Prize is a prestigious scientific research award by the society in the name of a member, William Procter, who later also endowed this award in 1950. This award recognizes outstanding contributions to scientific research and the ability to communicate the significance of the research to scientists in other disciplines.

Notable alumni

More than 200 winners of the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfre ...

have been Sigma Xi members, including

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...

Enrico Fermi Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian (later naturalized American) physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" an ...

, Linus Pauling, Francis Crick, James Watson,

Barbara McClintock Barbara McClintock (June 16, 1902 – September 2, 1992) was an American scientist and cytogeneticist who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. McClintock received her PhD in botany from Cornell University in 1927. There ...

John Goodenough John Bannister Goodenough ( ; born July 25, 1922) is an American materials scientist, a solid-state physicist, and a Nobel laureate in chemistry. He is a professor of Mechanical, Materials Science, and Electrical Engineering at the University ...

, and Jennifer Doudna.

References

External links