Biophysical Society Bulletin | April 2020

President’s Message

Report fromCouncil With the continued goals of increas- ing transparency, sharing informa- tion, and providing to our member- ship insights on the activities of the BPS Council, the governing board of Biophysical Society, here is a sum- mary of the Council meetings that took place in San Diego during the 2020 Annual Meeting. Joint Council, a combination of the current, the

updated Code of Conduct and implementation of the report- ing system—were first-steps in addressing this topic. The Sexual Harassment Task Force that was created last June will continue their work and look to address additional policies as well as provide programming and resources in support of an inclusive, harassment-free Society. A primary topic of discussion at Council meetings was BPS publications, as further action was taken on the proposals presented at the November Council meeting and reported on in the January issue of the BPS Bulletin . The Publications Committee recommended, and Council approved, a scope for the new open access journal, Biophysical Reports . You can read more about the new journal on page 9. The Publications Com- mittee also provided more information and a recommendation on engaging a public relations/marketing firm to help the Society better communicate the role and value of the Biophys- ical Journal to members. Council gave the green light to initiate that project. Biophysical Journal Editor-in-Chief, Jane Dyson , and Editor-in-Chief Sam Safran , of The Biophysicist , a new Society journal focused on biophysics education, presented reports to Council about the status and initiatives of their respective journals. A portion of the Council meeting was dedicated to hearing from BPS Committee Chairs. Committees provide annual writ- ten reports to Council, but this was an opportunity for Chairs to bring forward any particular challenges or issues. Among the items discussed were challenges retaining early career and younger members within the Society, industry engage- ment, the AAAS/BPS Fellowship Program, and diversity in the Society Awards. Conversations on these topics continued throughout the various Committee meetings, and several joint initiatives will occur in the coming months including a new child care policy being proposed by the Early Careers (EC) Committee in conjunction with the Committee on Professional Opportunities for Women (CPOW), and program development for industry engagement between EC and the Membership Committee. The BPS Travel Awards program is also a joint effort between the CPOW, Inclusion and Diversity (CID), Mem- bership, and Education Committees, who reported to Council that for the 2020 Annual Meeting, there were 763 Travel Award applicants and 215 winners. Half of the winners were female, and 27 percent were underrepresented minorities. A fewmembers of BPS leadershipmet with Executive Committee members of the International Union for Pure and Applied Biophysics (IUPAB) during the Annual Meeting, and shared opportunities for collaboration. BPS will sponsor a plenary lecture and some poster awards at the IUPAB 2020meeting in Brazil this October. IUPAB joined BPS as a Partner Society for Biophysics Week 2020 and will sponsor a lecture at BPS 2021.

Catherine A. Royer

outgoing, and the incoming Council members, met the evening of Friday, February 14, and the morning of Saturday, February 15. New Council, the now current cohort, met the morning of Wednesday, February 19. A high point of the Joint Council agenda was giving thanks to outgoing Council members Zev Bryant , Teresa Giraldez , Ru- ben Gonzalez , and Marina Ramirez-Alvarado (though she was unable to attend) as well as Past-president Angela Gronenborn . Their service on Council has been invaluable, and they will be missed. Looking to the future, Zev Bryant, who also chaired the Nominating Committee for this cycle, presented the slate of prospective Council members and officers for the 2020 bal- lot. BPS members, including students, will elect new leaders during the upcoming BPS election in June. The Annual Meeting is always a central topic of discussion for Council. Patricia Clark and Bill Kobertz , 2020 Co-chairs, and Patricia Bassereau and Bertrand Garcia-Moreno , 2021 Co-chairs, were on hand to talk about current and future programming, including challenges related to speaker cancellations, the excellent member-suggested sessions, and a preview of the 2021 program. In 2021, the Society Awards Symposium will be replaced by a Biophysical Journal Symposium highlighting the Paper of the Year along with other outstanding science from the journal. Young Investigator Awardees of the Marga- ret Oakley Dayhoff Award and the Michael and Kate Bárány Award will present their work in the Future of Biophysics Symposium. Subgroup Saturday is a much anticipated part of the Annual Meeting, and the draft 2021 program was shared with the Subgroup Chairs so that they could provide feedback to the Annual Meeting Co-chairs and begin planning their sessions for 2021. Council identified some operational issues related to the Subgroup leadership and suggested some policy updates, which will be discussed with Subgroup Chairs during their annual call in May. Council reviewed the Sexual Harassment Symposium that was featured on February 16 and reaffirmed the commitment that recent actions on this topic — the symposium along with the

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