We joyfully wore ourselves out in Philadelphia at the 68th BPS Annual Meeting: between meeting with colleagues, attending back-to-back outstanding scientific sessions and great committee programs, and, of course, the exuberant return to the dance floor after Monday night’s excellent awards ceremony and BPS Lecturer Carolyn Bertozzi’s fantastic talk!
Bookending the excitement, Council had three busy, productive meetings during the Annual Meeting. Joint Council was held Friday evening on February 9 and then again Saturday morning on February 10. New Council met on Wednesday morning, February 14.
The Friday Joint Council meeting opened with a proposal from then-President Taekjip Ha for BPS to stand up a new committee to review nomination packages for the Outstanding Doctoral Research in Biophysics Award, which will be awarded to two recent PhD recipients. With the strong student population in BPS, we are hoping for a high number of nominations, and Council agreed that the current Awards Committee, chaired by Linda Columbus, would have its hands full with the other three new awards in addition to previously existing awards. The new committee will be called the Dissertation Award Review Committee and will be chaired by Ha for the first three years. The other members of the new committee will be Rommie Amaro, Kandice Levental, Takanari Inoue, Erdinc Sezgin, and Georg Pabst.
Council then reviewed the Treasurer’s Report and received an update on BPS reserves from Director of Finance and Operations Harris Povich. He shared that, after an extensive request for proposals process, we contracted with Protech as part the strategic technology investment approved at Joint Council in San Diego at BPS2023. Protech is an association management software vendor whose system, once launched for BPS, will connect data, people, and processes with business applications to support all of our activities and programs, with room to grow.
Margaret Cheung, Council member and Nominating Committee Chair, presented the slate for the 2024 election, which Council approved enthusiastically and unanimously. The election will open June 1 and includes candidates for President-Elect, Councilor, and Treasurer. Teresa Giraldez, BPS Secretary, facilitated selection of the 2024 Nominating Committee. This year’s committee will be chaired by Valeria Vasquez and includes members Syma Khalid, Kumiko Hayashi, Kresten Lindorff-Larsen, Cheung, and ex officio member Ha.
The Friday session concluded with recognition of outgoing Council members Hayashi, Henry Colecraft, Susan Marqusee (in absentia), Kandice Tanner, and Past-President Gail Robertson.
Saturday Joint Council included a deep dive into the 2024 Annual Meeting with Program Chairs Ibrahim Cissé and Elizabeth Villa. They shared their experience creating the program and excitement to see how it would unfold in the following days. Dorothy Chaconas, BPS Director of Meetings & Exhibits, provided feedback about the implementation of the new Symp Select Talks, the Platform Flash Talks, and the opportunity for Platform speakers to also present a poster. While some adjustments will be made for BPS2025, the feedback to that point was very positive.
Lukas Tamm, Thematic Meeting Committee Chair, presented two proposals for new Thematic Meetings, which Council approved, and shared that a third proposal may come to Council at their spring meeting pending some further development of the program. Council also reviewed reports from the two BPS Conferences that occurred in 2023, the Proton Reactions Conference in Tahoe, California and the Membrane Fusion and Budding Conference in Estes Park, Colorado, and approved both to reoccur in 2025.
Other Saturday agenda items included a review of the 2025 Annual Meeting program, the addition of two new members to the Annual Meeting Program Committee for 2025–2027, a review of the Subgroup report card, and approval of the agenda for the annual BPS Business Meeting occurring the following Tuesday.
When New Council convened on Wednesday morning, the lead topic was once again the ongoing 2024 Annual Meeting, where Cissé and Villa provided final insights and feedback they received over the previous few days. Overall, the program changes were well received, and the goal of creating a diverse and inclusive program showcasing early career researchers was achieved.
Christopher Yip, Program Co-Chair with Sudha Chakrapani for BPS2025, provided a revised program for the 2025 BPS Annual Meeting, which incorporated feedback received from the Subgroup Chairs at their meeting the day before and included a fifth workshop focused on techniques. Council discussed the importance of the two successive President’s Symposia Black in Biophysics, in 2023 and 2024, and voted unanimously for this event to continue in future years as an integral part of the program.
BPS Editors-in-Chief Vasanthi Jayaraman, Padmini Rangamani, and Jörg Enderlein attended Wednesday’s New Council meeting as well and provided updates on Biophysical Journal, The Biophysicist, and Biophysical Reports, respectively. Biophysical Journal published several special issues recently with several more in the pipeline. Jayaraman invited participants from the JUST-B poster session and the Black in Biophysics mixer to contribute Research Highlights to the journal and encouraged members of Council to submit research articles and reviews. Rangamani shared that The Biophysicist will have a special issue on Effective Mentoring in Biophysics, and the editors are exploring an issue on AI in Biophysics Education. Enderlein noted that he was adding editors from India and China to the Biophysical Reports editorial board to broaden the geographical range of the editors. Kathleen Hall, Chair of the Publications Committee, was in attendance as well and echoed the sentiments of all the editors that it is important for leadership and members to continue (and increase!) their submissions to all the BPS journals.
In December, we shared in this column that a Sustainable Future Task Force was initiated to explore steps we should take to empower members who would like to use their skills and expertise toward research related to a sustainable future and to explore steps that we should take to align Society activities with the goal of achieving a sustainable future. After initial research and two meetings, it was clear that a more permanent entity within BPS would be needed to pursue the mandate of sustainability. To that end, Council approved the recommendation to evolve the task force into a new committee. Details about the committee are included on the front page of this issue. Sustainability is such a critical issue that it may well be the focus of the President’s Symposium at BPS2025. We will keep you posted!
As always, the discussions at Council were multi-faceted and the decisions made by Council reflect input from many voices and thoughtful consideration of different perspectives. We welcome your input, too, and invite you to reach out to us at any time at [email protected] or [email protected].
—Gabriela K. Popescu, President
—Jennifer Pesanelli, Executive Officer