Biophysical Society Bulletin | June 2023

President’s Message

Officers President Taekjip Ha President-Elect Gabriela Popescu Past-President Gail Robertson Secretary Erin Sheets Treasurer Samantha Harris Council Patricia Bassereau Margaret Cheung Henry Colecraft Martin Gruebele Kumiko Hayashi Syma Khalid Susan Marqusee Emmanuel Margeat Elizabeth Rhoades

2. You can do both a talk and a poster: Pre viously, you could present your work in only one format, a platform talk or a poster. Some prefer the poster format, as it allows in-depth discussion with colleagues for an extended pe riod, and those abstracts were not considered for a platform presentation. Now, you will be able to indicate your preference to also present a poster even when your abstract is chosen for a talk. We believe this change will improve the scientific content for both platform and poster sessions. 3. Five-minute flash talks: We will replace one of the eight talks in a platform session with three flash talks by students or postdocs, each five minutes long. We were inspired by Subgroup symposia, which experimented with flash talks and convinced us that a couple of

major messages can be well delivered “in a flash,” albeit more declaration than explana tion. These flash talks will be scheduled in the final slot so that interested audience members will have the opportunity to meet the speakers and ask questions afterwards. We will require flash talk speakers to also present their work in the poster format. We are excited about these changes to our meeting program which we believe will sig nificantly increase the number of presentation opportunities for you and improve the overall scientific content. Please feel free to reach out to me by email with any questions, sugges tions, or concerns (tjha@jhu.edu). — Taekjip Ha , President

Kandice Tanner Valeria Vasquez Jing Xu Biophysical Journal Vasanthi Jayaraman Editor-in-Chief The Biophysicist Sam Safran Editor-in-Chief Biophysical Reports

Call for Thematic Meetings Take advantage of a unique opportunity to organize a meeting on a topic you care about while receiving administrative support from the Society. Three to four Thematic Meetings will be selected on focused topics that have not been recently presented. The Society underwrites each meeting up to $10,000 and provides complete meeting management, including all web and onsite components. What makes these meetings unique from other small meetings is that they bring together researchers from disparate disciplines to work on a common problem, which is what biophysicists do. Thematic Meetings have taken place throughout the world, reaching communities that often cannot attend the Society’s Annual Meeting. Criteria for BPS Thematic Meetings are: • Organizers must be Society members; • Topics must be timely, not recently addressed, and should foster interdisciplinary and international research; • Each must be a standalone meeting, not a satellite meeting that already meets periodically; • Speakers must present new and exciting research; • The proposed list of speakers must represent the geographic, gender, and ethnic diversity of Society membership; and • International sites are recommended. Only complete proposals submitted through the online submission site (www.surveymonkey.com/r/Z3JKFQ2) will be considered by the Thematic Meetings Committee. Previous and upcoming Thematic Meetings can be viewed at www.biophysics.org/thematic-meetings. Submission deadline for proposals is Monday, July 28, 2023.

Jörg Enderlein Editor-in-Chief

Society Office Jennifer Pesanelli Executive Officer Newsletter

Executive Editor Jennifer Pesanelli Managing Editor John Long Production Ray Wolfe Meredith Zimmerman Proofreader/Copy Editor The Biophysical Society Newsletter (ISSN 0006-3495) is published eleven times per year, January-December, by the Biophysical Society, 5515 Security Lane, Suite 1110, Rockville, Maryland 20852. Distributed to USA members and other countries at no cost. Cana dian GST No. 898477062. Postmaster: Send address changes to Biophysical Society, 5515 Security Lane, Suite 1110, Rockville, MD 20852. Copyright © 2023 by the Biophysical Society. Darren Early Laura Phelan

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