POTSDAM -- Clarkson University professor Charles Robinson was recently elected to a three-year term on the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association (ALSA) board of trustees.

As a trustee, he will help to strategically guide how the association uses its Ice Bucket Challenge funds and other income to promote research that might lead to a cure for the fatal disease as well as provide care services to those with the disease and their caregivers.

He was elected at the recent ALSA Leadership Conference in Irvine, Calif. The conference provided leadership training to volunteers from the 39 ALSA chapters nationwide and an update on the current state of ALS research that was greatly aided by Ice Bucket Challenge funds.

Robinson is a board member of the Upstate New York Chapter of ALSA and formerly served as the chapter’s liaison on the national ALSA board of representatives. The chapter serves the northern 48 counties of New York State.

Robinson co-chairs a community partner for ALS golf tournament held each August at the Highland Greens Golf Course in Brushton, N.Y. He also continues to serve on the local and national ALSA care services committees.

At the ALS Clinical Care Conference in November in La Jolla, Calif., he presented a tutorial paper, "'Rectangularizing' Quality of Life During the Progression of ALS."

He brings to the board of trustees his extensive background in research and care services for those with neurological disease and trauma, adds his proven leadership skills that he had employed as a volunteer in other federated volunteer societies, and provides his insight as the principal caregiver during Rosemary's, his wife of 39 years, three-year decline and death from bulbar ALS.