Anna Quider
Anna Quider is not only representing NIU’s best interests in Washington, D.C.
She also is playing a lead role in advocating for scientific research funding to our nation’s universities.
Quider, NIU’s director of federal relations, recently was elected secretary of the board of directors for The Science Coalition, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization of more than 60 of the nation’s leading public and private research universities.
As secretary, she also serves on the coalition’s four-member Executive Committee.
“This provides a good opportunity to highlight NIU’s leadership role in national conversations about research,” Quider said.
“I am proud to join the leadership team of The Science Coalition, a leading national voice dedicated to securing robust federal investments in fundamental science and technology research,” she added.
“We live in a time of unprecedented scientific advancement and this coalition works to ensure researchers across the country have the funding they need for continued progress. With its diverse research enterprise, NIU is well positioned to benefit from and to uniquely contribute to leadership of the coalition.”
Quider took on the role of NIU’s federal relations director in 2014. She is well-versed on the topic of science, having earned bachelor’s degrees in physics and astronomy, in religious studies and in the history and philosophy of science at the University of Pittsburgh. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Marshall Scholar.
In the past, Quider has served as a principal investigator on a Hubble Space Telescope research project and as an elected member-at-large on the Executive Committee of the Forum on Physics and Society, a unit of the American Physical Society. She also worked previously on international science issues at the U.S. Department of State.
“Anna has done an outstanding job representing NIU in Washington, and we are very lucky to have her on our team,” said Jerry Blazey, interim vice president of the Division of Research and Innovation Partnerships. “She’s well versed in science policy, and I’m delighted to see she has taken a leadership role on the national stage for science advocacy.
“In her new role with The Science Coalition, she will be at the forefront of efforts to sustain the federal government’s investment in science,” he added. “Ultimately, that investment pays off for all of us by helping to develop new knowledge and technologies, which improve our lives and strengthen our economy.”
