Biophysical Society Bulletin | February 2020

Communities and Outreach

Subgroups Membrane Transport Subgroup

helpful to the reader. At best, it will probably not answer their questions and at worse, it will give a negative impression. We have all heard stories where a letter writer will tell the stu- dent to write it themselves and they will sign. Hopefully this will not happen to you — focus on fostering potential letter writers to learn about you and your research before you need to ask for a letter. This is a process you should have started well before you finish your thesis. References can be faculty in your department or program with whom you interact such as your thesis committee members, and they can be scien- tists who may not know you as well personally, but know your science very well. A collaborator is perfect or they can be people from your field who appreciate your work. Hopefully they have heard your talks or had discussions with you at conferences. Later in your career, these types of references become ever more important, but are often difficult to identify for a graduate student. Nonetheless, you have hopefully been developing such relationships by attending conferences and participating in inter-lab and inter-institutional collaborations. A great way to develop a reference is to invite them to serve on your thesis committee as an outside reader. It is impres- sive to potential employers to find that you have developed professional relationships with prominent scientists from other institutions and that they can speak to the impact of your work. Good luck with landing your postdoc and in developing your research career. — Molly Cule

The 2020 Membrane Transport Subgroup Symposium will start at 1:30 pm on February 15, 2020. We have an excellent lineup of speakers: Grace Brannigan (Rutgers Univ.), Katherine Henzler-Wildman (Univ. of Wisconsin Madison), Osamu Nureki (Tokyo Univ.), and Randy Stockbridge (Univ. of Michigan). Four short talks by postdocs and students are selected from the submitted abstracts and with suggestions from the members. The business meeting will be immediately after the Sympo- sium from 5:00 pm to 5:30 pm . We will have a coffee break at about 3:00 pm and Lucie Delemotte has ordered double the amount of hot coffee and tea! We acknowledge Avanti Polar Lipids ( Walter A. Shaw ), Swedish e-Science Research Center ( Erik Lindahl ), and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign ( Emad Tajkhorshid ) for their sponsorship. We would like to announce our new Subgroup Blog which can be found at: https:/www.biophysics.org/blog/updates-from- the-membrane-transport-subgroup In the first Blog post, research from Grace Brannigan, Randy Stockbridge, and Luis Cuello is highlighted. We welcome mem- bers to submit updates of research in their labs for posting on the Blog. Membership fees remain a major source of income for cov- ering the cost of the annual symposium. Please encourage members of your lab to sign up for the Membrane Transport Subgroup. BPS membership fees include membership to one Subgroup of your choice. See you in San Diego! — Susan Rempe , Chair; Ming Zhou , Vice Chair; Lucie Delemotte , Secretary-Treasurer

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February 2020

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