The GSA Equity and Inclusion (E&I) Committee has been engaged in a number of projects designed to meet the goals outlined in our framework for making progress toward an equitable, anti-racist future. Here, we discuss the past two years of work; in early 2023, we will share plans and ideas for our next activities.

Bringing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Scholarship to GSA Conferences

Since 2020, GSA-sponsored conferences have adopted a model, proposed by the E&I committee, that acknowledges the importance of DEI discussions accessible to all meeting attendees, highlighting the value that GSA sees in DEI scholarship. All GSA-sponsored conferences now include sessions that focus on promoting DEI scholarship and sharing expertise on DEI-related initiatives. These sessions are scheduled within the main program and, importantly, without competing parallel sessions. This approach increases engagement because attendees don’t have to choose between DEI and research talks; it also underscores the message that DEI is a critical component of the scientific enterprise.

Vision for Inclusive Conferences

After helping conference organizers to program DEI sessions for 2020 and 2021 meetings, the E&I committee began work on a document meant to provide guidance and a common starting point for all future organizers. Led by Andy Arsham and Sarah Bay with contributions from Anna Allen, Matthew Hahn, Olumuyiwa Igbalajobi, and Aimee Jaramillo-Lambert, our Vision for Inclusive Conferences is now part of the onboarding process for all scientist volunteers who organize a GSA-sponsored conference. The Vision takes a holistic view of conference programming and suggests ways that inclusion can (and should) be centered at all stages of the planning process. It provides guidelines for selecting an organizing committee, inviting speakers and session chairs, and other actions needed to build inclusion into all aspects of the meeting. 

We’re excited to share the Vision for Inclusive Conferences with anyone (including individuals and organizations beyond GSA) who might find it a useful resource: https://genetics-gsa.org/vision-for-inclusive-conferences/ 

Presidential Membership Initiative
The Presidential Membership Initiative (PMI), now starting its third year, continues to grow. PMI cohorts participate in activities aimed at integrating them into GSA and connecting them with senior members to function as mentors and supporters through their careers. Presidential Members (PM) receive no-cost, one-year memberships to GSA and a waived conference abstract fee. Twenty-seven PMs have attended five GSA conferences in 2021-2022, and 32% renewed their membership past their initial year. The GSA community benefits greatly from participation of this diverse (Figure 1), engaged, and enthusiastic group in workshops, conferences, events, and research efforts. Applications for the 2023 PMI cohort are live now and close December 16, 2022. Look out for PMI meet-ups at upcoming conferences in 2023.

The Neighborhood Program

In early 2021, the E&I committee started work on a new project now called The Neighborhood Program. This program, which will begin rolling out in 2023, is an innovative way to develop tight-knit, collaborative groups of colleagues who are intentional in their efforts to improve the understanding of science in the public, specifically within systemically minoritized populations. These “neighborhoods,” led by early career scientists, will be united by a common interest in a science-in-society problem. The program will engage scientists from a variety of backgrounds, identities, and career stages, and the resulting neighborhoods will have the potential to address critically urgent research needs of minoritized communities and will enable powerful conversations at the intersection of culture, society and environment, and shared scientific goals. Examples of science-in-society problems include health inequities, mitigating effects of climate change or environmental toxins, understanding developmental impacts of stress or isolation, or leveraging adaptation of animal species to hazardous environments to reduce risk in affected communities. 

Why The Neighborhood Program? Many enter science with a personal drive to improve the lives of the people who matter most to them. Often, this mission is redirected, with traditional training approaches encouraging assimilation, foregoing an opportunity to strengthen community connections, and dimming trainees’ cultural interests. The Neighborhood Program flips the model by building high-impact science on a foundation of cultural and community knowledge. The approach maintains the core mission of community-focused scientists while providing connection to experts with shared interests.

We piloted this program in June 2022, where four talented Presidential Members served as “Block Captains” and led the first two Neighborhoods in efforts to address health disparities in diabetes and in women’s health. We plan to expand the effort in the coming years, including via a workshop at Dros23; if you’re interested in learning more or getting involved, please email equityinclusion@genetics-gsa.org.  

In July 2022, we submitted a grant for funding to support development and expansion of this program. The proposal effort was led by Sarah Bay, Alana O’Reilly, and Tracey DePellegrin, and supported by GSA’s Mary Adams (Controller), contractors Jacquelyn Roberts and Becky Carroll, the GSA E&I committee, the Society for Developmental Biology’s Anita Quintana and Ida Chow (Executive Director), and the American Cancer Society’s Tawana Thomas-Johnson (Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer) and William Dahut (Chief Scientific Officer). The funding opportunity we pursued was recently launched by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate of Biology and is called Leading Culture Change through Professional Societies of Biology (BIO-LEAPS). The NSF’s goal is to fund scientific societies to develop innovative programming that will “enact culture change that results in welcoming climates for diverse individuals.” The premise is that scientific societies have the power to influence and implement change via education and mentoring, conferences, awards, and publishing. We recently received reviews on our proposal and plan to revise and resubmit in 2023.

Partnering with Experts to Learn and Grow

Alongside the activities of the E&I Committee, GSA is excited to announce that it has invested in a partnership with Shari Dunn of ITBOM Consulting to offer innovative online training focused on equity and inclusion to staff, committee members, and leadership beginning in late November 2022. Shari Dunn is an expert in nonprofit business management, and her approach is rooted in history. ITBOM’s learning platform contains a 16-course suite of modules that cover a range of topics including unconscious bias, communication across differences, lessons from experts on disability inclusion and LGBTQ+ inclusion, and more.

By engaging with the material developed by ITBOM, GSA staff and scientist volunteers will reach a common level of understanding on topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Working from the same foundation will facilitate progress in these areas across the Society and its activities. We’re excited to build a shared knowledge base to support growth towards an equitable future.

Sustaining Action Into the Future

As part of our long-term vision for promoting actionable changes in equity and inclusion in GSA, we have formalized protocols to ensure that the membership of the Equity and Inclusion Committee reflects our goals to this end through the following mechanisms:

• Membership: Members of the committee serve two-year terms to maximize the diversity of our committee and provide frequent opportunities for prospective members to apply to serve. Applications for prospective members will open each year in October, with reviews and selections to be conducted by the end of the year. New members will be onboarded in January of the next year.
• Leadership: For better transparency and improved leadership continuity, we have formalized our leadership succession planning. In future, members will serve first as junior co-chair for one year and then become senior co-chair in the following year; in some cases, members may serve a third year as senior co-chair. Chairs will turn over in January of each year.

Previous Updates from the E&I Committee

• GSA’s commitment to dismantling racism in science: building a plan for sustained action
• Equity and Inclusion Update: The Presidential Membership Initiative
• Understanding who we are

Four GSA communities are excited to meet in person in 2022 — and to experiment with hybrid conferences that combine the benefits of online and in-person meetings.

After two years of online meetings of all kinds, we are thrilled to return to scientific conversations in person! In 2022, many of us will be together again, enjoying the science—and the company—at our regular in-person conferences with virtual attendance options. #Fungal22 and #PEQG22 will take place at Asilomar in Pacific Grove, California and #Dros22 will be in San Diego, California. #Yeast22 will be held in person at a location to be announced soon. All four organizing committees are working hard on creating can’t-miss programs to reunite and recharge their communities.

A few of the things we have missed most about scientific conferences “in real life” include meeting new colleagues at random, building stronger relationships with old colleagues, having unscheduled but in-depth conversations, discovering amazing talks far outside our specialties, and being able to dedicate focused time to the meeting away from everyday life. The intellectual buzz of several intense days of science at a GSA meeting is an enriching experience that has immediate results: new ideas, new collaborations, new jobs, new friends. 

Of course, we learned a lot from our experiments with online conferences in 2020 and 2021. For example, having the talks recorded ended the ubiquitous fear of missing out on something exciting in a concurrent session. And more people were able to ask questions via chat than was ever possible via a microphone. Most importantly, we learned that the virtual format could be more inclusive, lowering barriers to participation.

So, in 2022, GSA is leading the way in conference innovation  once again, this time with offering virtual attendance options alongside the full in-person conference, including opportunities to present online and access talk recordings, posters, and professional development events. While there is no way for us to completely replicate the in-person experience online, we hope that these select virtual options will translate to new “hybrid vigor” for GSA conferences by opening the experience to remote participants and enhancing the experience for those on site.

This flexibility seems even more critical while we continue to endure the uncertainty and risks of a pandemic. Because we understand that making future travel plans is difficult right now, we are adopting a flexible registration policy that will allow registrants to change from the in-person to virtual options (or vice versa) up until the month before the meeting.

As scientists, we all know that experiments come with costs. In this case, the new format has much higher labor, contractor, equipment, and technology costs than either an in-person or an online-only event. Note that the 2022 conferences are not expected to break even.

The past 18 months of conference experiments have been financially costly for the GSA, but also rewarding. Crucially, we have invested in these trials in order to maintain community connections and scientific contributions in a time of need. Despite the anticipated losses, we consider the virtual attendance option in 2022 to be an important step in learning how to balance the needs of in-person and online participants. We are excited to see what happens and to continue to evolve how scientists meet and exchange ideas.

2021 GSA Executive Committee

Hugo Bellen, President

E. Jane Hubbard, Vice-President

Denise J. Montell, Immediate Past President

Erika L. Matunis, Secretary

Michael Buszczak, Treasurer

Steven Munger, Member at Large

Tracey DePellegrin, GSA Executive Director

GSA’s Executive Director explains why and how we’re taking TAGC 2020 virtual.

For several years, we at GSA have been planning The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC), originally set for DC in late April 2020. After a successful inaugural meeting in 2016, organizers and GSA staff sought to bring communities together by focusing on scientific themes that spanned research organisms and disciplines. 

And then came COVID-19.

Because of the pandemic, we made the decision in mid-March to cancel the in-person meeting. While this was clearly the right call, it inevitably meant tremendous loss for our communities. 

Conference organizers, committee members, and staff had invested countless hours designing schedules, reviewing abstracts, planning professional development programs, negotiating contracts, and a thousand other tasks to ensure that attendees would have an inspiring, inspired experience at TAGC. Presenters—most of them early career scientists—had worked hard and were excited to share their discoveries. Workshop organizers were eager to engage with attentive audiences. Exhibitors and sponsors had offered travel awards, support for caregiver grants, and resources to help underrepresented groups attend the meeting. Journal editors were ready to field questions from those trying to learn the ins-and-outs of publishing. And above all, more than 3,000 attendees were excited to meet colleagues, make connections, listen, learn, and share. 

Even as the decision to cancel the in-person meeting was being discussed, we started wondering: Could we move TAGC online? Was there any way to rescue some of the scientific and career value of the meeting?

In the course of just a few weeks, so much has changed. Many in our communities are juggling working from home, teaching online, childcare and homeschooling, figuring out lab operations, and new ways of communicating and collaborating—all amid the usual stressors like writing grants or submitting manuscripts. Some are dealing with the isolation of both living and working at home alone. Some of us—and our families and friends—may work in healthcare settings or interact with the public on the front lines of the pandemic. Others are dealing with illness or sick family members. Most are concerned with ways to help. It can be hard to find focus and time. It is impossible to find a sense of normalcy.

Despite the uncertainty in the world and the upheaval in our lives, the GSA Board and TAGC community leaders recognized that communicating science and making scientific connections is even more important right now than ever. 

Discovery must continue, and so must we.

It is in that spirit that we’re taking TAGC 2020 to a virtual format. Just like the original in-person conference, cross-community thematic sessions will alternate with community-specific sessions dedicated to particular model organisms and disciplines. We’ll have keynotes as well as The Gruber Prize in Genetics lecture. Talks and posters will be presented in a virtual and interactive format. In the weeks immediately following TAGC 2020, we’ll help organizers to host their Workshop Series online.

We’re happy to let you know that we’re making this virtual meeting free for registrants. Even people who weren’t originally signed up for TAGC 2020 can register to attend virtually. Why free? Given the circumstances, the uncertainty, and the short timeline we have for completely redesigning the meeting, we consider TAGC Online to be a big and exciting experiment. Despite the financial losses GSA will incur, we can’t ask our community to pay fees for such an experiment. We also recognize that many attendees will no longer be able to attend every session in the way they would have at the in-person meeting and that it is much harder for people to make firm plans and commitments in advance. We are grateful to have some support from sponsors and exhibitors that will help offset the cost; if your organization wishes to support our efforts, I encourage you to contact development@genetics-gsa.org. 

How will this virtual conference work?

The original schedule has been compressed and adjusted to allow for participation across US time zones and some international ones. We’ll still have a live welcome to the conference, talks will be live, and session chairs will moderate their sessions, all via Zoom. We’ll have live technical support to help things run smoothly. Most live sessions will be recorded and available for viewing by registrants for 30 days after the event. 

Poster presenters will upload their poster PDF and optional video/audio walkthrough for the meeting, and in the week following the meeting they will join live poster discussion sessions. GSA will also provide community and theme-specific Slack channels to encourage additional discussion of all sessions and to allow those with related interests to connect. Most of the attendee-organized workshops will be held via Zoom in the weeks following the poster sessions. 

Even though the conference is free to attend, all participants and presenters must register for TAGC 2020 Online, and each person will need to log in to the TAGC program planner/meeting app to view live sessions or recordings.

Join our experiment!

Will there be technical challenges? Probably. That’s to be expected with the worldwide volume of online interactions these days and the short timeframe for planning.

But when we encounter hiccups, support staff and presenters will adapt quickly to keep things moving. We’ll test in advance, make contingency plans, and provide each presenter with instructions. We’ll let attendees know device and internet requirements for optimal viewing and engagement. The biggest way attendees and speakers can help the meeting run smoothly is by carefully reading and following the technical instructions that we’ll send soon. And of course, please be patient if things don’t go according to plan!

Although some parts of the original program weren’t able to be ported to an online version at this time, we hope to be able to host a greater variety of online programs in the future, when we have more time to plan. 

We’ll be opening registration next week. Please join us at TAGC 2020 Online, whether it’s for one talk or the entire conference, and help spread the word. It wouldn’t be the same without you.

Learn more about TAGC Online ≫ 

Questions? Email GSAConferences@genetics-gsa.org.

Last week, the GSA Board of Directors cancelled The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC), an event we had all been eagerly anticipating. It was a heartbreaking end to four years of work and planning by many people across our community. 

Although painful, the decision was clearly the socially responsible thing to do. The Board voted unanimously to cancel because there was a clear health risk, not only to our attendees but to the broader public. Last Thursday—just four days ago—there were more than 1,600 cases reported in the US and more than 128,000 worldwide. Today, there are more than 3,600 cases reported in the US and more than 175,000 worldwide.

Right now we are focused on working with the community organizing committees to rescue at least some portion of the program using virtual platforms. It will not be the same as holding TAGC in person, but it is our best option under the circumstances.

We are mindful that cancelling a meeting imposes burdens. We took time to evaluate the incoming information and make a considered choice. Many early career scientists were counting on this opportunity to present their work. The huge potential for TAGC to accelerate science and foster new collaborations was at stake. We knew that without TAGC, some of our communities would have to wait 1-2 years for their next community meeting. Some of us had already secured visas, made travel plans, organized childcare, scheduled lab reunions, and planned meetups with friends and colleagues. 

We initially planned to make a decision one month before the meeting was to be held. Unfortunately, the pandemic evolved so rapidly that cancelling the meeting became urgent. The risks vs benefits changed in a flash, so on Friday, we announced the decision to cancel TAGC to our communities and attendees.

Now, just a few days later, many of us are in the difficult position of figuring out how to shut down our research labs. We are suddenly tasked with designing online lab courses. We are trying to work from home while simultaneously caring for children unable to go to school or daycare. We are worrying about setbacks in tenure, grant, and job applications. Not to mention that we’re all worried about the health of colleagues, students, family members and friends—as well as our own health. 

Thoughts about conferences we may or may not have been able to attend are, this week, the least of all our concerns.

We’re fortunate that the GSA community is strong and connected. We can and will help each other. As challenging as the situation is, it is also an opportunity to get creative as we help each other muddle through. We’ve already had a member suggest that we share online genetics teaching strategies on the GSA website. Please get in touch with GSA (society@genetics-gsa.org) if you want to reach our members. Maybe you have a question to ask the community, maybe you have a resource to share, maybe you have a message or some advice. I’d also like to remind those with children now at home that the Conference Childcare Committee has created a “Parents in Science” Slack channel where you can share your ideas. You can join it here.

As we face this uncharted territory together, we urge you to follow the advice of public health authorities to keep yourself and those around you safe. As scientists, we’re in a position to really understand the scope of the situation facing us—and to help the public understand it better, too. Reducing disease spread and the associated burden on our healthcare systems requires us all to be safety- and community-minded. Think of it like pulling off to the side of the road to let the ambulance and fire truck go by. It’s inspiring when everyone pulls together to do the right thing for the community as a whole.

We hope to see you at future conferences when it is once again safe to hold them.

Update, March 25: Stay tuned for an announcement this week about the new virtual format of TAGC 2020 Online!

The Genetics Society of America is committed to increasing support for parents and caregivers who attend our conferences. As the Conference Childcare Committee, we’re asking for input from parents and caregivers in the community so that we can best meet your needs.

This short survey should take less than ten minutes of your time, and your feedback will help make GSA Conferences more parent-friendly! The survey will remain open until August 2.

The survey is now closed.

The Conference Childcare Committee is charged with assessing the current offerings for family support and childcare available at GSA Conferences and making recommendations for ways that GSA Conferences can better serve primary caregivers and make our meetings more equitable.

For more information on our efforts in this area, see our previous blog posts:

Oh, Baby, the Conferences You’ll Go by Madhumala K. Sadanandappa

How can we make scientific conferences better for parents? by Tânia Reis

Questions or comments? Contact Tânia Reis, committee chair, or Sarah Bay, GSA staff liaison.

The Genetics Society of America (GSA) has joined the Societies Consortium on Sexual Harassment in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine). The Societies Consortium aims to address sexual and gender-based harassment in science and advance professional and ethical conduct, climate, and culture in STEMM fields.

“GSA works to advance the field of genetics, but science can’t flourish while scientists are held back by sexual and gender harassment,” says GSA Executive Director Tracey DePellegrin. “We are pleased to team up with other societies in confronting this pervasive problem.”

The Societies Consortium will provide research, resources, and guidance to member societies to assist them in addressing sexual harassment in their respective fields, including model policies and procedures for society awards.
Responding to community concerns about harassment at scientific events, GSA has recently updated the code of conduct for GSA conferences. The new code makes it clearer what types of behavior are unacceptable and outlines the consequences of non-compliance. Joining the Societies Consortium will enable GSA to take the next steps in promoting a safe and inclusive climate in our field.

The Societies Consortium was established by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), and the American Geophysical Union (AGU), with EducationCounsel serving as the policy and law consultant. GSA joins a group of more than 70 inaugural members.

The committee will assess current childcare support at GSA meetings and make recommendations for improvement.

Parent scientists know firsthand that many scientific conferences fail to provide adequate support for attendees with children. Indeed, Calisi et al. discussed the “childcare-conference conundrum” in detail earlier this year, outlining the barriers parents face and making suggestions for how conferences can better support them. The bottom line is this: when parents—and disproportionately, mothers—are unable to attend scientific conferences because the conferences don’t adequately support them, they can face career penalties. These individual setbacks reverberate throughout the larger scientific enterprise, and it’s up to us as conference hosts to help tackle the problem.

GSA Conferences are an integral part of our mission to foster an international community of geneticists. It’s important to us that we work hard to make our conferences equitable, welcoming spaces for all scientists to participate in the sharing of discovery and the advancement of their fields. We believe that knocking down as many barriers to participation as we can helps us build the strongest scientific community. To this end, we are forming a committee to gauge how well our conferences currently support parent scientists and other primary caregivers and, most importantly, to explore and recommend new initiatives for the future.

We want to make sure that we provide support for a wide range of parental needs, including practical and monetary considerations for pregnancy, breastfeeding, and childcare. We also want the culture of our conferences to explicitly convey our support for parent scientists so that when you attend a GSA Conference, you know we’ve got your back.

If you’d like to be a part of helping us achieve these goals, please volunteer for the committee and send us your ideas and input. We expect to hold our first committee meeting in November 2018, with a tentative goal of making initial recommendations during Spring 2019.

(The volunteer period is now closed. Thanks to all those who expressed interest in being a part of this new initiative.)

Every two years, the GSA is proud to support the C. elegans research community as they come together to share their science and their infectious enthusiasm. Last week, the 21st International C. elegans Conference enjoyed beautiful Los Angeles weather and an abundance of cutting-edge biology. For those missing their worm friends already, and for those who couldn’t make it to UCLA, enjoy these #Worm17 photos from Twitter!

GSA is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2017 Victoria Finnerty Undergraduate Travel Award. This award, which honors the memory of Victoria Finnerty, supports travel costs for undergraduates engaged in research to attend the 58th Annual Drosophila Research Conference.

Congratulations, undergrads! We’ll see you in San Diego.

James Cevallos, University of California, Los Angeles

“My work uses the mushroom fly Drosophila falleni and its parasitic nematode Howardula aoronymphium to better understand olfaction and parasite-host interactions.”

Jenna Harris, Georgia State University

“My research is focused on understanding genetic programs that drive neuronal development and connecting those programs to sensory nociceptive behavior in a fly model of Charcot-Marie-Tooth sensory neuropathy.”

Madison Hupp, Kennesaw State University

“I am using live imaging to document heart formation in wild-type and mutant Drosophila embryos.”

Matt Riccetti, University of Dayton

“I am using a fruit fly (Drosophila) eye model to see if the Ecdysone cell signaling pathway can reduce Aβ42-mediated neurodegeneration, the hallmark of Alzheimer’s Disease.”

Ryan Salemme, John Carroll University

“Our lab is interested in the genetic control of neuromuscular junction development in Drosophila melanogaster.”

Liesl Strand, University of Washington

“My research investigates developmental processes in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, specifically, I am interested in the signaling pathways that contribute to the formation of tubular structures early in development.”

Courtney Willett, Kennesaw State University

“I am using fixed and live imaging to uncover novel interactions between genes that regulate muscle development in Drosophila embryos.”

]]> https://genestogenomes.org/statement-from-gsas-executive-committee-on-the-u-s-presidents-executive-order-on-immigration/ https://genestogenomes.org/statement-from-gsas-executive-committee-on-the-u-s-presidents-executive-order-on-immigration/#comments Fri, 03 Feb 2017 14:30:47 +0000 https://genestogenomes.org/?p=8359 UPDATE, July 10, 2018 After more than a year of legal battles, the most recent version of the travel ban has been upheld by the Supreme Court. We wish to reiterate our previous statement, underlining the extent to which such restrictive policies not only harm the scientific community, but the technological and societal progress that…]]>

UPDATE, July 10, 2018

After more than a year of legal battles, the most recent version of the travel ban has been upheld by the Supreme Court. We wish to reiterate our previous statement, underlining the extent to which such restrictive policies not only harm the scientific community, but the technological and societal progress that depends on their work.

We encourage members of the GSA community affected by the ban, including GSA members, GSA conference attendees, GSA committee members, GENETICS and G3 authors, reviewers, and others in the scientific community, to contact us at society@genetics-gsa.org to let us know the impact this policy has had on you.

Science in the 21st Century is built on international collaboration and global cooperation, with progress dependent on the open exchange of ideas, technology, and people from around the globe. This collaboration does more than advance science; it cultivates greater understanding and friendship as researchers learn to live and work with their colleagues from other nations and cultures.

Every year the Genetics Society of America hosts scientific conferences as part of its mission to foster an international community of geneticists. At these conferences, scientists share their work freely to advance our understanding of inheritance and of the natural world. These meetings are vital catalysts for the sharing of ideas and the improvement of human lives.

But this year, as a result of U.S. President Trump’s January 27, 2017 executive order on immigration, our conferences will be incomplete. Our colleagues based outside the United States who were born in seven Muslim-majority countries will not be permitted to travel here to attend GSA meetings. Indeed, we have already had several cancellations. Other colleagues say they will not travel to the U.S. in protest of the new restrictions. Still others fear that the ban will, over the coming months, extend to their countries of origin. This situation, and the associated uncertainty, is repeated for countless other conferences being planned by scientific societies and institutions across the country, as well as for scientific collaborations across labs and research institutes.

The travel restriction impedes scientific progress in the U.S. in myriad ways. It compromises many significant ongoing collaborative projects aimed at improving the health of our society. It restricts some scientists living legally here from traveling overseas for fear of being denied re-entry. It prevents talented young scientists from studying in the U.S. and contributing to scientific enterprises in this country. Moreover, damage to the United States’ reputation for fairness and equality will hamper our long-standing ability to attract the best scientists in the world to our shores.

For those in our community affected by this order, we will offer whatever help and support we can. We are evaluating options to accommodate GSA conference registrants who are prevented from physically attending meetings. We’re exploring ways to offer scientific presentations on demand, the ability to present a poster remotely, and to participate in workshops via video conference.

In a letter to President Trump authored by AAAS, the GSA—along with over 163 scientific societies, universities, and other signatories—strongly urged the US administration to rescind the travel ban.

We reject as contrary to our values as a scientific community the idea that people seeking entry to the U.S. should be excluded on the basis of their country of birth or religion. Turning inward serves neither science nor the interests of the U.S.

Executive Committee of the Genetics Society of America

Lynn Cooley, PhD, President

Jeannie T. Lee, MD, PhD, Vice-President

Stan Fields, PhD, Past President

David Greenstein, PhD, Secretary

Piali Sengupta, PhD, Treasurer

Eric Selker, PhD, At-large Director