Biophysical Society Bulletin | June 2024

President's Message

Your Membership Supports and Defines the Biophysical Society

In my first President’s Message column (March 2024), I articu lated as a priority for this year a return to a balanced operating budget. To maintain ongoing pro grams and continue to adapt to new challenges, this means that we must make up for losses we incurred during the pandemic. The

biophysicists ratified the Constitution and Bylaws of what we now know as the Biophysical Society. With this act, members took on a new identity, that of biophysicist! Over the past 67 years, BPS has stayed committed to its mission to lead an innovative global community working at the interface between physics and biology. It has grown to become the largest association of biophysicists across the globe, reaching a high watermark of ~9,000 members in 2010. This growth allowed the Society to expand its area of influence and develop programs in addition to the Annual Meeting and Biophysical Journal . Among the initiatives that help to make the Society more diverse, inclusive, and acces sible are the creation of tailored membership types and a regular evaluation of membership composition. Membership composition reflects our values. Five mem bership types support equitable access across career stages, geographical areas, and economic means. As of December 31, 2023, the Society consisted of 6,117 members, of whom only 2,920 were Regular members; Early Career (861), Student (1,967), and Emeritus (322) members combined made up more than half of the total. In addition, there were 16 Regu lar, 3 Early Career, and 28 Student members from developing countries. This distribution reflects our strong and consistent commitment to being an inclusive society. Geographic diversity. About 30% of members are non-US mem bers residing in 51 countries—mostly Europe (14%), Asia (9%), Canada (3%), and Mexico (1%), with the remaining 2% residing in South America, Australia and the South Pacific, Africa, and the Caribbean. Gender diversity. Membership is made up of 63% Men, 34% Women, and <1% Non-Binary, with 3% Undisclosed. Ethnic diversity. Self-reporting indicates that our membership is 45% Caucasian, 30% Asian, 6% Latino/Latinx or Hispanic, 3% Black or African American, 3% Middle Eastern, 1% Multi-Ra cial/Multi-Ethnic, <1% Native American/Indigenous/Alaska Native, and <1% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, with the remaining 13% Undisclosed. Although we need to do more to improve representation and access, we recognize and prioritize this with our current strategic plan to foster a diverse and inclusive global commu nity and to invest in the future of biophysics. It is important to keep in mind that to continue to afford programming, support, and reduced membership fees for vulnerable categories of scientists and future scientists, we need strong participa tion from Regular members. Therefore, how accessible and

Gabriela K. Popescu

main revenue sources for the Society come from the Annual Meeting, membership dues, and royalties from the Biophys ical Journal . Given that each of these programs accounts for about one-third of our annual income, it is imperative that we secure the financial strength of all three. In last month’s column, I summarized how the Annual Meet ing takes shape, and how you can engage with the process. We continue to welcome your feedback and are pleased the Annual Meeting remains healthy, with attendance averaging about 5,200 over the past 15 years. In a future column, I will address how our publications program serves our mission and supports our bottom line. However, BPS membership has more value and significance than simply allowing for dis counted registration to the Annual Meeting or reduced publi cation fees in the Society’s journals. That is why this column is about membership, about the value it provides, and about its critical role in maintaining an active, vibrant organization. Membership defines who we are and what we do. BPS is a non-profit, member-based organization. This means that it works for the benefit of its members and any profit that it generates is reinvested to support its articulated mission. As such, its members are both supporters and beneficiaries; membership defines the size and identity of BPS and speaks for its value, strength, and vitality. The Society was born in 1958 as a spinoff from the American Physiological Society. This specialization was a natural result of two opposing forces. On one side was the unprecedented growth in quantitative tools stimulated by the war effort; on the other, the natural need for more focused interactions among the scientists who used and developed these tools to examine and serve life. The first meeting, held in 1957, at tracted about 500 scientists and aimed to determine “if there was such a thing as biophysics and, if so, what sort of thing this biophysics might be” (according to the published proceed ings of that meeting). It turned out that attendees identified enthusiastically with the new frankenword. They decided to initiate the process of creating a new, international, non-profit association that would advance and spread knowledge in bio physics. The following year, at their second Annual Meeting,

June 2024

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