Biophysical Society Bulletin | January 2026

Public Affairs

What led you to apply for the BPS Ambassador Program? BPS has helped me professionally since 2011. I have actively served on the Public Affairs and Early Careers Committees, and I currently serve on the Education Committee. All these experiences have enriched me in multiple ways, and I want ed to share the same with other biophysicists in India. Since 2017, I have been attending meetings of the Indian Biophysical Society. Thus, what I learned attending BPS meetings will allow me to improve my ability to translate local needs into BPS initiatives and to convey BPS resources back to Indian stu dents and researchers, especially first-generation and women researchers. What are your Ambassador Program goals? My long-term goal is to establish a structural bioinformatics hub that links Indian researchers with international collabora tors, supports students from diverse backgrounds (especially high school students from underrepresented groups), and informs local policy with robust data. I plan regional workshops in which students learn modeling on laptops, virtual exchanges that pair Indian coders with experimental groups abroad, and outreach visits to rural colleges where access to biophysics remains limited. Tell us something about your life outside the lab I do research on Indian classical dance history in my free time. A highlight was when we identified the dancers in an obscure video at New York Public Library, and they updated the catalog (www.nypl.org/research/research-catalog/bib/b12171771) with the sentence “Additional date and credit information given to Dance Division by dance researchers.” Christian Kaiser The Netherlands What do you do professionally? interested in the folding and dynamics of biological macromol ecules. Before moving to The Netherlands in 2023, I was an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University. My group has a longstanding interest in understanding co-translational pro tein folding and chaperone action. To better understand these processes, we are using single-molecule manipulation with optical tweezers and single-molecule fluorescence detection, complemented by cellular reporter assays. What led you to apply for the BPS Ambassador Program? Ever since I became a BPS member during my postdoctoral work in the United States, the Biophysical Society has been instrumental to my career in science, and I have rarely missed an Annual Meeting. The Ambassador Program is a great oppor tunity to contribute to the Society’s mission of leading a global biophysics community. Christian Kaiser I am a professor in the Bijvoet Centre of Biomolecular Research at Utrecht Univer sity, leading a research group that is mainly

What are your Ambassador Program goals? As an ambassador, I am looking forward to serving as a bridge between the Biophysical Society and the vibrant biophysics community in The Netherlands, with a focus on fostering exchange and getting the next generation of scientists excited about biophysics. Tell us something about your life outside the lab I am a fourth degree academic descendant of Peter Debye , who had been a Professor at Utrecht University (although I did not realize that before moving here).

A Look Ahead: What’s in Store for the 2026 Biophysical Society Thematic Meetings

Where will we see you in 2026? Get ready for a dynamic year of scientific exchange! Each of our 2026 Thematic Meetings offers a unique opportunity to dive deep into emerging topics, con nect with leading experts, and spark collaborations that push the boundaries of biophysics.

Biophysics of Membrane Reactions in the Brain May 11–14, 2026 — Bucharest, Romania

Mechanobiology of Infection June 7–11, 2026 — Ascona, Switzerland

Active and Responsive Biological Matter: How Cells Sense and Respond to Their Physical Environment July 20–24, 2026 — Riga, Latvia

Single-Molecule FRET: The Next 30 Years September 21–25, 2026 — Tutzing, Germany

Explore a Meeting Today: biophysics.org/thematic-meetings

January 2026

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