Biophysical Society Bulletin | March 2020

President’s Message

AMessage from the President Greetings fellow biophysicists. I write this missive as I prepare to become the President of our

our academic institutions have largely failed in overcoming disciplinary barriers. Here again, BPS should be well-placed to offer insight and ideas. The Education Committee is dedicat- ed to addressing these issues and providing ideas for moving forward. Likewise, we have a new Society journal, The Biophysicist . According to its editorial policy statement, The Biophysicist aims to highlight and nurture education, its scholarship, and development. The journal serves a worldwide, broad audience to make fundamental concepts and techniques in biophysics (and related disciplines), as well as evidence-based pedagogical practice accessible to individuals at all levels: K-12 and public outreach, undergraduate, graduate and post-grad- uate students/trainees, active researchers, and scholars of biophysics teaching and learning. This goal will be achieved by both academic articles and informal reports that reflect the in- terdisciplinary nature of biophysics education and the activities of biophysicists in a variety of scientific fields. A third challenge of our times is the evolving, as yet unclear, nature of scientific publishing. There is no quick and easy answer to the question of how to position Biophysical Journal to best weather this transition. Better minds than mine have spent a great deal of time, effort, and thought doing just that. Biophysical Journal and all the other Society publications are in the competent hands of the Publications Committee and staff. The single most effective thing Society members can do to ensure the success of our flagship journal, as well as our other Society publications, is to submit their best work and serve as a reviewer when asked. The Society depends heavily on the success of Biophysical Journal for its financial well-being and for fulfilling the Society’s mission to lead the development and dissemination of knowledge in biophysics. Moreover, we should “own” great biophysics, and take pride in publishing our work in a journal that, in turn, supports our field. One problem with our Society membership is the lack of di- versity in terms of underrepresented minorities. I have seen in my more than 30 years as a Society member, the proportion of female members increase. Moreover, their status within the Society (awards, Society lecturers, Fellows) has increased dramatically since the early 1980s when I first attended a BPS meeting as a graduate student. While progress remains to be made in gender equality, I feel that we have come a long way since the Society was founded over 60 years ago. The Committee for Professional Opportunities for Women has done and continues to do a great job. Sadly this progress in inclusiveness has not occurred to the same extent for under- represented minorities, despite the great work of the Committee for Inclusion and Diversity . They have done a fantastic job in outreach to underrepresented students, bring-

great Society for the next year. It is rather an awesome responsibility. I feel both honored, and a bit ner- vous. Luckily, I have support of the Society staff and the cumulative knowledge and ideas of the Society Council, which includes committed Society members, the Past President, and the President Elect. So, rest assured, I will not do this alone. Taking on the stewardship of a scientific Society like BPS always presents challenges, but I feel this is particularly true at this point in time. In the field of biophysics, exciting new approaches are being developed nearly daily to quantitatively interrogate molecules, living cells, and organisms in order to discover the mechanisms underpinning biological function and disfunction. This is true of both experimental and compu- tational approaches, which are becoming increasingly con- nected. One only has to spend an hour or two at the poster session of the BPS Annual Meeting to get a strong sense of this rapidly evolving science. Indeed, I hope you attend the Annual Meeting and visit the poster sessions. In my opinion, they are the best part of the meeting. This is where the new- est innovations and discoveries are presented, usually for the first time. Moreover, the results are often presented by the trainees, postdocs, and students who actually did the work. Stopping by their posters allows for in-depth discussions of exactly what was done and exactly how. These are indeed very exciting times for biophysics. But these are also challenging times. Biological sciences are becoming more quantitative. What was long considered to be biophysics is often called integrative biology or quantita- tive biology instead of biophysics. How do we make sure to capture this exciting science within the BPS? Arguably, our Society is the best place to shepherd, develop, and promote this type of research, given our longstanding emphasis on and deep expertise in quantitation, theory, and modeling, and the development of new experimental approaches. This is one of the demanding tasks facing our Society Membership Committee . A second challenge is how to educate trainees in the multi-disciplinary science and techniques that are required for today’s biophysical investigations. Most of us have boot- strapped at least some of the know-how and understanding we use daily in our research. This is probably not the best way to go about training a new generation of interdisciplinary sci- entists. New approaches are desperately needed. In contrast, Catherine A. Royer

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