Elected Committees of Council:
- Committee on Nominations and Elections, Member, 2000-05; elected as Chair by committee members, 2004-05
- Committee on Committees, Member, 1994-98; elected as Chair by committee members, 1996-08
- Council Policy Committee, Member, 2006-08
- Committee on Economic and Professional Affairs, Member and appointed as Chair, 1999-2000
- Committee on Local Section Activities, Member and appointed as Chair, 1991-93
- Committee on Meetings and Expositions, Member, 1985-90; and appointed as Chair, 1988-90
- Committee on Professional Relations, Associate Member, 1977-79
- Committee on Economic Status, Member, 1980-87; and appointed as Chair, 1987
- Women Chemists Committee, Member, 1973-78; Secretary, 1974-77; and Consultant, 2002-06
- Val organized and chaired two Special Presidential Symposia:
- High Tc Superconductors.This symposium attracted over 2,000 attendees, including the President's Science Adviser.
- Cold Fusion. More than 7,000 individuals attended this symposium and heard the discoverer of this phenomenon and experts express their opinions on this discovery.
- Val is a co-originator of:
- SciMix. This has become the most popular event at the national meetings and has been recognized as a wonderful opportunity to meet other researchers with similar interests.
- The Town Hall Meeting. This is becoming a "don't miss" event. Members have found this event helpful in hearing the nominees/candidates for the Board of Directors answer a variety of questions from the audience.
- Facilitated the implementation of electronic balloting for ACS elections.
- Encouraged increasing the diversity of national committees and slates for President-Elect and the Board of Directors.
- Initiated leadership training for national Committee Chairs.
- Got for the recently unemployed, 6 months of free access to Sci-Finder.
- Presented career workshops at national and regional and local section meetings She has reviewed resumes, and given career workshops to undergraduate and graduate students and post-docs. National Career Consultant, 1998-2012 and Career Workshop presenter, 2003-10.
- Urged increasing the accessibility of information on safe laboratory techniques and procedures.
- Pushed for broadening the pool of individuals nominated to include those from groups not commonly well-represented in the awards program.
- Assisted in the development of the Graduate Student/Post-doc Reception that attracted over 800 attendee at the spring 2012 national meeting,
- Suggested that science museums be informed of the availability of Bytesize Science and Global Challenges.
- Urged that ACS members be made more aware of the ACS podcasts, Bytesize Science, Global Challenges and Science Elements and have access to those materials.