Bonnie Lawlor was elected as an ACS Fellow in 2013. Bonnie began her career at the Institute for Scientific Information (now part of Thomson Reuters) as a chemical indexer/editor for Index Chemicus® (IC®). Her leadership ability became very apparent and she quickly rose to manager of the department. She eventually became an ISI Director and was responsible for the overall production of the chemical products including the IC Registry System (ICRS®). In the mid-1980s she was promoted to Vice President. In this position the staff and all production phases of Current Contents® (CC®) were added to her responsibilities. Bonnie demonstrated a take-charge attitude and was eventually given the responsibility of content management for all of ISI’s products including the Science Citation Index® (SCI®), Social Science Citation Index® (SSCI®), and Arts and Humanities Citation Index® (AHCI®). Through various promotions she became Executive Vice President of database publishing. In addition to overseeing production of the many ISI products she was given the added responsibility of global sales and marketing.

When new technologies were developed for delivering products Bonnie was at the forefront for pursuing how these technologies could best be used for ISI products. She was involved in making the relevant products available first on diskette and then on CD ROM which became the forerunner for the Web of Science (WOS) which is currently used by millions of students and researchers in colleges and universities throughout the world. The WOS database is also widely used in evaluative and scientometrics studies.

Bonnie is currently Executive Director of the National Federation of Advanced Information Services (NFAIS™), a membership organization of more than 55 of the world’s leading producers of databases and related information services, information technology, and library services in the sciences, engineering, social sciences, business, and the arts and humanities.
Bonnie became a member of the American Chemical Society in 1972 and almost immediately became an active member. As a member of the Division of Chemical Information she has had many roles. She started out as Assistant Editor of the CIB and then became Editor. She was Secretary (1984-1987), Chair-elect (1988), Chair (1989), Past-Chair (1990) and is currently Councilor, a position she has held for more than 20 years. Bonnie has been a member of many committees and served as chair for several of them. She is currently the CINF Archivist and is on the CINF Communications and Publications committee. As a Councilor she has held many elected positions at the national level. Some of these are Committee on Committees (2012-present), Council Policy Committee (voting 2006-2011, nonvoting 1997-1999), Committee on Nominations & Elections (2000-2005, vice-chair 2003, secretary 2001), Committee on Divisional Activities (1994-1999, chair 1997-1999), and Committee on Copyrights (1990-1998, chair 1993-1995, committee associate 1989).

Above is only a snapshot of Bonnie’s career accomplishments and her many contributions to ACS. This is enough to give you a sense of why CINF’s Bonnie Lawlor was selected as one of the 2013 ACS Fellows.