Sigma Xi

Sigma Xi was established at Brown in 1900. Professor Benjamin Franklin Clarke was the first president of the Brown chapter, which was reported by the Brown Alumni Monthly in 1901 as “Numbering as it does among its members almost the whole scientific faculty and many of the best of the graduate students.” Those eligible for membership were professors, instructors, and graduates of five years standing who have “shown noteworthy achievement as an original investigator in some branch of applied science,” as well as graduate students and seniors who exhibit scientific aptitude and promise. The Brown chapter has held frequent meetings with talks on scientific subjects, and presented awards to outstanding science teachers in Rhode Island. New members are nominated by the representatives of the various science departments, and elections are made by a board of electors consisting of the chapter president, and a representative from each of the Departments of Applied Mathematics, Biology and Medicine, Chemistry, Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, Computer Sciences, Engineering, Geological Sciences, Mathematics, the Center for Neural Science, Physics, Psychology, and Environmental Studies.