Biophysical Society Bulletin | September 2022

Communities

Tugba Nur Ozturk Education Committee

Tugba Nur Ozturk

Is this your first volunteer position for BPS? If not, what other positions have you held? Yes, this is my first volunteer position at BPS. Outside of BPS, I volunteer as an executive council member of the Washing ton University in St. Louis Postdoc Society and co-chair the Career Development Committee. I am also a member of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Washington University. Why do you volunteer? On a professional level, I believe that every biophysicist should be volunteering so that all our input can change things for the better. Our experience, voice and effort can only im prove science and our community. Volunteering is my way of contributing to the BPS community and making sure that we plan effective and useful events to support biophysics educa tion and educators. On a personal level, volunteering allows me to get to know a lot of biophysicists and to work closely with invaluable colleagues. Some of these colleagues turned out to be great mentors. Among others, I feel grateful to Patricia Soto , Ashley Carter , Yadilette Rivera-Colón , and Elizabeth Yates for showing me how to be good at research, teaching, and mentorship while having fun! If I weren’t volunteering, I wouldn’t have met and worked with the amazing group of biophysicists on the Education Committee. What has been a highlight from your volunteer experience? My volunteering for the Education Committee was an ex traordinary support system during the lockdown. We had more frequent meetings as a committee and we had a blast of amazing ideas from these meetings.

For example, we wrote an article to share our experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic in BPS’s education journal, The Biophysicist , and we initiated the Primarily Undergraduate In stitution (PUI) network to support PUI faculty as well as grad uate students and postdocs who are interested in working at PUIs. The PUI network is now an environment for current PUI faculty to share experiences with one another. Another opportunity for me was to represent the Education Commit tee on the organizing team for The Biophysicist Webinar Series that launched in 2021. I learned a lot from these webinars and got the chance to meet several scientists who care about biophysics education like me and are willing to share their experience and advice. I am glad that I volunteer for BPS! Do you have advice for others who might be thinking about volunteering? Yes. I absolutely encourage everyone to volunteer. It is a fun and rewarding experience that gives you the chance of expressing yourself and being a part of an amazing commu nity. Volunteering is a great way to find like-minded people to improve things together, be it the way we do science or the way we interact with each other. Especially in the beginning of training (whether it is for a PhD or postdoc position), volun teering can help you feel like you belong in the Society (and in science overall). When not volunteering for BPS, what do you work on? I work on understanding the complex world of membrane proteins and their interaction with lipids using computational modeling. I love doing research—it is demanding yet fun. On weekends, I try to take time off from research. I really enjoy reading books (especially science fiction), spending time with my pets, and playing board games.

Webinar 7: Using Curricular Material Repositories to Enhance the Learning Experience September 22, 2022, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM USA Eastern Webinar Series Register Today at www.thebiophysicist.org

September 2022

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