GSA’s new audio interview series is designed to help you discover and share interesting perspectives from the genetics community—even when you only have five minutes to spare.

The excitement of science is meant to be shared.

What if you could hear scientists share—in their own words—the value of their work using yeast, flies, worms, and other genetic research organisms?

What if, at the same time, you would gain insights into some very cool biology and inspiration to talk even more about your own work to broader audiences? 

What if you could do all this by just grabbing a snippet—a few minutes here and there between running a gel or going to a seminar? 

And, what if you could share these short snippets with friends and family outside science (you know, the ones who don’t get that “fruit fly obsession”), so they glimpse why this kind of work is so important? After all, people outside science may want to know how science discoveries are made and how discoveries might benefit them, even if the endpoints of the research are not totally obvious from the get-go.

GSA is thrilled to introduce SNPets. 

Join me and our genetics colleagues—Nobel Prize winners, GSA leaders, and other scientists making breakthrough discoveries—as they discuss the sometimes-twisty roads to their discoveries, how their research organisms made it all possible, and what the scientific community means to them. 

Got a minute? Check out a SNPet for a quick pop of inspiration. 

For me, these last few years have driven home how crucial—and yet how challenging—it is for scientists to communicate how we know what we know and why we do what we do.  

When it comes to explaining our own work, it can be especially tricky to convey the value of basic research to listeners who cannot easily relate to the topic (cellular signal transduction, anyone?). Making matters worse, many of us use simpler organisms as experimental systems such as yeast, worms, flies, and fish. We face an additional conceptual chasm—even a “yuck” factor—that can be hard to bridge. 

But there are many who want to understand what we do and why we do it. Or rather, as I learned from a recent SciPEP conference on communicating basic science (a new research field in itself), many want to know why we do it (the goal) but are less interested in how we do it (the process) ¹. I was particularly struck by a survey that showed differences in word association between non-scientists and scientists, with respect to basic science. The non-scientists associated basic science with “hope”—a word linked to an eventual outcome, while the scientists associated basic science with “joy”—a word linked to the process. Indeed, much of our effort goes into the process and its rigor, a key aspect of how we know what we know.  

No wonder, then, that the value of our work is difficult to convey to listeners who—unfamiliar with the exciting, if tortuous, path of rigorous discovery that consumes us—want to know the endpoint, especially when the direct benefit of our work may be both unanticipated and years in the offing.  

And yet, we all know how incredibly important our work is. We know that we are part of a large scientific community where our results both build on prior knowledge and enable future discovery. We must continue to communicate the value of basic science to diverse audiences, including funding agencies, colleagues, students, legislators, friends, and family. The good news is that studies show that if we engage people’s curiosity, they will want to know more². History tells us over and over (peas! phages!) that discoveries from simpler organisms lead to major scientific breakthroughs that affect people’s lives (e.g., pathogen vector control, mRNA vaccines, cancer therapies, siRNA-based drugs, and understanding genetic diseases). And it is not just history; today’s discoveries will undoubtedly impact our lives well into the future. All the more important for us to have many examples and clear explanations at the ready to help illustrate the value and promise of our work. 

As president of GSA, I want to promote initiatives that will invigorate the discussion of the value and promise of basic science. I especially want to raise awareness of basic science that uses simpler organisms, be they the so-called “model organisms” or less familiar organisms that offer special insights into specific scientific questions. (In a future Frameshifts blog post, I will open a discussion on how we might rethink our use of the term “model organism.”) 

I draw your attention to three ongoing activities, all of which seek to help you to discuss with people in your lives the value of basic research, especially as it capitalizes on the “awesome power of genetics” of simpler organisms. 

First is the continued GSA collaboration with pgEd, the Personal Genetics Education Project (pgEd) of Harvard Medical School. Last year, we partnered to build public dialogue about genetic technologies. Our joint programs aim to better equip scientists to engage in discussions about genetics with all communities, with special emphasis on those who have been marginalized, economically disadvantaged, or excluded from conversations about science.  This year, we are planning virtual events that will bring together experts from the public engagement ecosystem, highlight ongoing work of GSA members, and open dialogue on your perceived challenges and strategies for engaging effectively with others.  

Second is the work of the new GSA Committee for Public Communication Engagement, which I chair. We are developing several “basic science to human impact” case studies as information, tools, and templates for you to use. We welcome your ideas and participation in this new initiative, and we will continue to reach out with requests for information and feedback. 

Third, stay tuned for “SNPets,” where we will share short written posts and audio clips of conversations with colleagues, starting with several whose creative and impactful work has been recognized by major awards. We will delve into their thoughts on basic science, on the experimental systems they use, how they achieved their big discoveries, and how they communicate their work. We hope these clips will reinvigorate the conversation about basic science and also provide examples and inspiration for your own communication efforts.   

Keep your eyes and ears peeled for these and other GSA announcements coming to your inboxes and social media. GSA is an amazing organization, and I encourage you to become familiar with all our activities and to get involved. 

Wishing you all a very happy, healthy, flexible, and resilient 2022, despite the inevitable uncertainties and challenges. 

Citations

1. Christopher Volpe, https://education.lbl.gov/2021/08/04/communicating-the-future-the-2021-scipep-conference
2. Tania Lombrozo, https://education.lbl.gov/2021/08/04/communicating-the-future-the-2021-scipep-conference

A message from 2021 GSA President, Hugo Bellen.

If there is anything we have learned from this pandemic, it is to prioritize what is important to us and what sustains us in times of trouble.

For me, it is promoting science and technology, providing mentorship, ensuring that my family is safe and happy, and helping patients with rare genetic diseases in their diagnosis. For the GSA, it is ensuring the dissemination of science and providing a cohesive community. As President of the GSA for the past year, it has been an honor to serve the Society and witness the dedication of the staff and so many volunteers. You have bolstered science and community in the face of significant challenges, and I am proud of your many successes. I want to make special mention of some of these volunteers.

Thank you, conference organizers, program committees, poster judges, workshop organizers

So much goes into organizing a successful conference that is not always visible to attendees. Thank you to the many who helped bring the virtual #Dros21 and #Worm21 conferences to life. Your efforts helped thousands of scientists in 45 countries to share their science and remain connected during the pandemic. Don’t forget to register for our conferences in 2022, #Fungal22, #Dros22, #PEQG22, and #Yeast22.

Thank you, early career leaders

GSA’s Early Career Leadership Program participants continue to do great work for the community, such as science communication, creating career development resources and workshops, advocacy, and keeping their fellow grad students and postdoctoral scientists informed and inspired. They have even launched a new podcast! You can check out Genetics in Your World now.

Thank you, editors, reviewers, authors

Peer review and expert editorial guidance improve scientific publishing and shore up the foundations on which new discoveries are built. Thank you to all the editors, reviewers, and authors who contribute to GENETICSand G3 and have made GSA Journals so enduring and useful to the field. Thank you also to our Early Career Reviewers and all those in making the GENETICS Peer Review Training Program so successful. We are excited to be welcoming a new cohort very soon. And a very happy 10th anniversary to G3 editors! Don’t forget to check out the Anniversary Collection.

Thank you, seminar presenters, moderators, organizers, attendees

This year, thousands of people attended GSA webinars, most of which are available to watch as recordings. We appreciate everyone who helped illuminate new topics in science and for our broader community. Check out the recordings and other info at the links below.

• Exploring gene function across humans and model organisms
• Strategies for contributing to a broad conversation on genetics and society (in partnership with pgEd)
• Multilingual seminars
• GSA Awards seminars
• New Faculty Workshop

Thank you, Board and committee members

GSA leadership and committee members are thoughtful, creative, hardworking, and always looking for ways to make a difference. A special thanks to the Equity and Inclusion Committee, who worked very hard this year on conference events and guidelines, the Education Committee, for organizing important education events, and the Nominating Committee, who assembled an outstanding election slate.

Thank you, Presidential Members

I’d like to extend a special welcome to the Presidential Members and say thank you for your many contributions to the Society. Learn about this year’s Presidential Members here, and we look forward to meeting the 2022 cohort soon!

Thank you, donors

Thank you to everyone who has donated to the GSA in the Annual Appeal. Your contributions make so much of our work possible.

Please read the inspiring 2021 overview prepared for this year’s Annual Appeal to learn more about the GSA community’s achievements this year.

Finally, there is still time to make a donation to the GSA before the end of the year.

The GSA community is both highly collaborative and deeply innovative. It is critical that their unique contributions are able continue in the face of serious funding issues and the many impacts of the pandemic. Please give generously and help us to support and advocate for science and for scientists.

We are grateful for each of you. See you in 2022!

Periodically, Mother Nature seems as if she is angry with us, like when Hurricane Katrina drowned my childhood hometown of New Orleans and nearly 2,000 of its citizens. Sometimes we humans bring destruction down upon each other, like the terrorist attacks of 9/11. And then there was 2020.

Like many of you, as we rang in the new year, I was preoccupied with preparing to teach a large undergraduate class, excited about research projects in various stages of maturation, and worried about making ends meet in the lab. I was also looking forward to serving as President of the GSA, though it was disconcerting that my plans were still vague. A year is a short time in which to start and finish any project. It turns out that it was just as well, because whatever ideas I had about leading a scientific society—whatever plans I had about anything—were soon swept away as the pandemic first crept and then crashed over us all.

Every day brought a new challenge. Final exams hastily thrown online, made optional, or abandoned altogether. Classes and conferences cancelled, labs locked down, precious experiments trashed, school scuttled, learning how to do online learning—we had to reinvent every aspect of our daily lives. We desperately scoured the news, teasing information out of the tangle of misinformation and disinformation. At the very moment we needed each other and hard science the most, we were cut off from each other and our labs. Suddenly it became clear what GSA needed to do.

Never in my lifetime has the value of scientific societies in general, and GSA in particular, been more obvious. We are a community of scientists for scientists. In this relentless year, GSA brought us together during our isolation, fought policies that threatened science and scientists, committed to dismantling racism, welcomed more scientists from lower- and middle-income economy countries, and launched an initiative to help scientists better engage with the public. As the year comes to a close, I would like to note a few of the high points on the rollercoaster ride of 2020.

Our first crisis was that GSA had to cancel our much-anticipated, four-years-in-the-making conference, TAGC. The Board considers TAGC—which brings all our meeting communities together—to be an essential component of our mission. While devastated that we had to cancel, we were determined not to let our communities down, particularly our early career scientists. Somehow, without any precedent or even a model to follow, GSA’s dedicated staff stepped up to the challenge and flipped the conference online in the space of a few weeks. We were the first major society to do so and thereby became a model for others to follow.

GSA decided to make the conference free to attend. Although this resulted in a substantial financial cost to the Society, I consider this not so much a budget setback as money well spent. From a mission standpoint, TAGC Online was a wild success. During that critical time of confusion and isolation, the conference brought us all together. When many of us most needed it, we came away inspired by new research and buoyed by the resilience of our community. We even got up-to-the-minute SARS CoV2 genetics information that you could not find in the news we were all obsessively reading.

Taking TAGC to an online format also quadrupled attendance, reaching scientists around the world. As just one example, only four people from Brazil registered for the in-person meeting, while 898 registered for TAGC Online. We learned there is a deep hunger for knowledge and connection amongst people who cannot typically attend in-person conferences. This understanding will reshape the future of conferences.

The great potential for online conferences was reinforced by the first ever online Molecular Parasitology Meeting. Around a quarter of attendees were able to take advantage of free registration for scientists from countries with lower- and middle-income economies (LMICs). With the help of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, we’re excited to extend free registration to LMIC-based attendees of next year’s fly and worm meetings.

Of course, keeping the scientific world connected is much harder in the face of xenophobic policies. Throughout the year GSA opposed multiple new immigration policies that would have harmed international scientists in the US, and we joined efforts opposing political interference in health policy and research. Thankfully, the combined work of universities and scientific societies like GSA succeeded in getting an executive order reversed that would have deprived US universities of the talent and dedication of many of its international students.

And then, Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. Many of us felt jolted awake by a bright light suddenly shining on our collective acceptance of systemic White supremacy throughout this country, within the academic institutions that we have helped to build, and even buried deep within the synaptic connections of our own minds.

Although equity and inclusion were already priorities at GSA, we realized that we needed to do more. We committed to moving faster and more effectively to address racism. We recruited more diverse candidates than ever for our election. The Equity and Inclusion Committee sprang into action and developed a concrete anti-racism action plan. I’m particularly grateful for their work this year, as they also struggled with the consequences of the pandemic, and for the Board of Directors whose thoughtful discussions make everything we do better.

We launched an important program, the Presidential Membership Initiative, the goal of which is to give early career scientists from historically excluded populations access to the benefits of membership in the Society. Through this initiative, we plan to support and develop a thriving new generation of diverse leaders.

2020 has also been marked by a reckoning with the true scale of the gulf between scientists and the public. With so much miscommunication, misunderstanding, and rampant misinformation, we must take a more active role in reaching out. But many of us don’t feel qualified or prepared to launch into discussions about complex and sometimes controversial topics with ethical and social dimensions. This is where scientific societies like GSA are critically important. We are here to help our community learn how to engage in such conversations in an open and inclusive way.

Fortunately we do not have to start from scratch. We’re thrilled to be able to collaborate with pgEd, an organization that has been developing these skills for more than a decade. Together, pgEd and GSA are creating a series of online workshops, free of charge for the GSA community, on public engagement for scientists. We are also planning to raise funds to support public engagement internships and fellowships. Importantly, the program will have a special emphasis on opening discussions with the public to those who have been marginalized, economically disadvantaged, or otherwise excluded from conversations about science.

Another remarkable highlight of this year has been seeing how the grad students and postdocs in our Early Career Leadership Program made lemon meringue pie from the lemons they were handed. Although their carefully laid plans for many TAGC events and workshops were disrupted, they quickly switched to online formats and then expanded their offerings. I’d like to acknowledge these individuals and all the wonderful things they do for our community, including writing articles, publishing interviews, organizing career workshops and seminars, creating a weekly—that’s right, weekly—e-newsletter. They also find time to help the staff and leadership, give us feedback, ideas, suggestions, and occasionally some carefully considered criticisms.

Of course, in the midst of all of this disruption and change, the Society did not stop its regular work! GSA kept publishing research, organizing conferences, holding elections, awarding Society and “travel” awards, training peer reviewers, publishing blog posts, and much more unseen work that is needed to keep the GSA running smoothly and serving our many constituents.

On that note, I strongly encourage you to support GSA in particular and scientific societies in general. There are so many ways you can help. Please encourage your colleagues of all career stages to join! Please volunteer to serve on a committee doing work you are passionate about. You can make a difference in the world. Send us an email at society@genetics-gsa.org if you want to help. Donations to the Society also help us sustain our important programs. Send us suggestions, congratulations, complaints. You are the GSA!

So as we bid farewell (finally!) to 2020, I find myself again preoccupied with figuring out how to teach my large class — this time via Zoom and with far more attention to inclusivity. I am more excited than ever about our research projects in all stages of maturation, and more worried than ever about the lab’s bottom line. More importantly, I worry about the impacts this pandemic year will have on our graduate students, postdocs, and junior faculty. I am grateful that science is coming to the rescue in the form of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and COVID treatments. I am grateful that GSA has had a large role to play in keeping us connected and moving nimbly forward. I am hopeful that Mother Nature will be more forgiving this year, and we will be kinder and more just to one another. And so, I wish everyone a happy, healthy, safe, and productive 2021!

As yet another Black man suffocates under a policeman’s knee, cities burn, and the coronavirus spreads a disproportionate burden of suffering and death to communities of color, we are in a moment that calls for action. It would be heartfelt and true for White scientists like me to say to our colleagues and fellow citizens of color that we hear you, we stand with you, and we want to help make things better. But it would not be enough.

We can and should read the many heartbreaking accounts of innocent Black men like LZ Granderson who have been repeatedly traumatized by encounters with police who regularly mistake them for a fugitive criminal. But it is not enough. It is too easy to conclude that this is someone else’s problem, a problem between Black men and police.

We can and should read the eloquent words of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar putting current events in the context of the ubiquitous and inescapable racism that permeates this country. “Racism in America is like dust in the air,” he says. “It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere. As long as we keep shining that light, we have a chance of cleaning it wherever it lands.”

Acknowledging pervasive racism gets us closer, but it is still not enough. Only when White people understand our own complicity in the system that holds people of color in this country down, can we really begin to change course. I learned this truth by reading the book “White Fragility,” and I urge you to read it too. The author, Robin DiAngelo, opened my mind to an idea that was and still is abhorrent to me: I have come to realize that I, as a White person, was born into privileges that have propelled me upward at someone else’s expense. More cutting still, I have perpetuated racism in this country—albeit unconsciously—by accepting those privileges. Once we truly and deeply understand these facts, it becomes unbearable not to act.

This moment is a call to each one of us to take action against the institutional racism and inequality that are woven into the very fabric of our society. It is not enough to watch and comment from the sidelines as people revolt against the outrageous murder of George Floyd—and so many before him. This is not just a problem caused by racist and overly zealous police officers and their enablers. This is not someone else’s problem. Racism is everyone’s problem.

So what can we do? We can start by listening to our colleagues to uncover the racism in academia that is hiding in plain sight. We can learn what they experience. We can begin every lab meeting with a statement of commitment to a more just and equal lab, society, and world. We can acknowledge painful ongoing events that may be affecting some of us more directly than others. We can educate ourselves about movements for racial justice. I am sure there is much more we can do. I am just a beginning student in this endeavor. But it has become unbearable not to act.

This week the GSA Board of Directors will be discussing what actions the Society should take to confront racism within scientific communities. While acknowledging the historical role genetics and geneticists have played in promoting racist thinking and actions, we hope going forward to provide support for Black scientists and all others affected by racism in science. With the help of the GSA Equity and Inclusion Committee, we will provide an update on our ideas and plans within the next two weeks. In the meantime, we welcome your feedback and suggestions via email: society@genetics-gsa.org.

Read more: GSA’s commitment to dismantling racism in science: building a plan for sustained action

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!

GSA President Jeannie Lee announces a new Strategic Plan for GSA.

When I became President earlier this year, I set out with two major goals in mind for the Society in 2018:  (1) To establish a new Strategic Plan that would map out a vibrant 5-10 year future for our community that includes scholarship, support for geneticists at all career stages, public engagement, and advocacy; and (2) to set us on a course for long-term fiscal sustainability in order to reach our ambitious goals.  

More than ever, science depends on teamwork. That extends to scientific societies — just like a lab, a Society is a collaborative effort that succeeds or fails on the hard work and ingenuity of its members. During my year as GSA President, I asked you all for help in setting new strategic directions. After all, it’s your Society. I couldn’t be more delighted at the response, which drew contributions from a huge number of participants, including strategic plan working groups, “Blue Sky” meeting participants, committee members, Board members, and staff, not to mention the thousands of you who responded to a plethora of community surveys. Following the Blue Sky meeting and analysis of the community surveys, we convened a number of Working Groups to study each of the “Strategic Pillars” created in response to the community’s participation and to make recommendations to the Board.

The Working Groups have done an outstanding job and I would like to give special recognition to each of the members, who provided creative ideas and showed spectacular commitment to the planning process. Listed below, these volunteers included many from our Early Career Scientist Committees, as well as Board members, GSA journal authors, conference attendees, and others from our community. These groups met remotely, discussed and researched their topics, and produced reports to support Board deliberations in record time. Thank you, and we hope to engage you all in the future plans that will grow from your suggestions.

Thanks in part to the Working Group reports and excellent ideas from the Blue Sky participants, our Board of Directors meeting last week was incredibly positive. We feel energized not only by the community support but by the big challenges we face and the even bigger possibilities in front of us. In this spirit, the Board ratified the eight Strategic Pillars upon which the Strategic Plan over the next 5–10 years will be built. These pillars both build on our existing strengths and align our efforts with aspirational goals for the future:

• Support the  professional development of our members, including at early and mid-career stages, and across all sectors of the workforce
• Advance science through scholarly peer review and high-quality publishing
• Connect and encourage collaboration between scientists through hosting conferences
• Foster a diverse and inclusive international community of scientists
• Serve as an authoritative voice of the genetics community
• Advocate for science and scientists, including informing the public and legislators about the value of research from the genetics community
• Support the genetics community in engaging and communicating with the public
• Ensure fiscal sustainability of the Society and its programs

Thus, I am happy to report that we have largely accomplished the goals for 2018. In 2019, we will begin to flesh out details of the Strategic Plan with more support from our deeply engaged community.  We have also identified a new approach for long-term fiscal sustainability in order to grow these Pillars, and have begun to implement the fundraising strategy that includes not only continued membership support but also sponsorship from industry and focused investors. The buzz around The Allied Genetics Conference in 2020 will be a focal point for our membership and the Board’s continued work on the Strategic Plan. I am enthusiastic about continuing to serve on the GSA Board and its Executive Committee in the coming year and look forward to working with the incoming President, Terry Magnuson, and Vice-President, Denise Montell. It has been an enormous pleasure for me to serve as President, and I want to thank each and every one of you for helping to shape an exciting future for the Society.  

Strategic Planning Working Groups:

Advocacy

Chair: Erika Matunis (Johns Hopkins School of Medicine)

Lacy Barton (New York University)

Clement Chow (University of Utah)

Mete Civelek (University of Virginia)

Giovanna Collu (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)

Martin Ferris (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Emily Lescak (Alaska Department of Fish and Game)

Victoria McGovern (Burroughs Wellcome Fund)

Jordan Ward (University of California, Santa Cruz)

Career Development

Chair: JoAnne Engebrecht (University of California, Davis)

Jeremy Berg (Columbia University)

Lex Flagel (Bayer Crop Science)

Rewatee Gokhale (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)

Kayla Capper (23andMe)

Buck Samuel (Baylor College of Medicine)

Didem Sarikaya (University of California, Davis)

Community, Conferences, and Journals

Chair: Kirsten Bomblies (John Innes Centre)

Rebecca Burdine (Princeton University)

Tamara Caspary (Emory University)

Aleeza Gerstein (University of Manitoba)

Matthew Hahn (Indiana University)

Tim Mosca (Jefferson University)

Katie Peichel (University of Bern)

Faten Taki (Weill Cornell Medicine)

Rob Unckless (University of Kansas)

Fiscal Sustainability

Chair: Jef Boeke (NYU Langone Medical Center)

Kent Anderson (Redlink / Caldera Publishing Solutions)

Joe Heitman (Duke University)

Andrew Kern (University of Oregon)

Kevin Lee (Grace Science Foundation)

Hunt Willard (Geisinger National Precision Health)

Mariana Wolfner (Cornell University)

Public Communication and Engagement

Chair: Arash Bashirullah (University of Wisconsin–Madison)

Mónica Feliú-Mójer (iBiology / CienciaPR)

Marnie Gelbart (Personal Genetics Education Project, Harvard Medical School)

Stephanie Mohr (DRSC/TRiP-FGR / Harvard University)

Damien O’Halloran (George Washington University)

Andreas Prokop (University of Manchester)

Cathy Savage-Dunn (City University of New York)

Ahna Skop (University of Wisconsin–Madison)

Jessica Velez (University of Tennessee Knoxville/Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

Turning vision into reality takes work—that much is obvious. But anyone who has written a proposal of any sort will realize that a coherent vision doesn’t appear out of thin air. It must be carefully crafted from an initial collection of goals, ideas, and ideals. This year, GSA’s staff, leadership, and membership are working hard together to reimagine the Society and hone a vision for the coming years. Following the productive brainstorming at our Blue Sky Meeting in May, the GSA Board of Directors met in June to begin turning the vision into reality.

An essential part of that strategic planning process is understanding the needs of our community. Our survey of nearly a thousand scientists and the Blue Sky participants taught us a lot about what you’re concerned about and how you think GSA can help. Despite the diversity of viewpoints and situations, there were three concerns shared by a large majority of participants, regardless of career stage: research funding, the current political landscape, and the public’s value of science. Among other insights, the survey also painted a picture of a pressure-cooker atmosphere among students and postdocs. This is perhaps reflected most starkly in the fact around a third are extremely concerned about their mental health.

Although this might all sound depressing, we know there are good reasons why people keep working despite these concerns. To get at some of the positives, we asked what excites you most about your work. Most of you—a diverse group—gave a small set of related reasons: you are most excited about learning, discovering, sharing, collaborating, improving lives, finding disease treatments, developing tools, conserving the environment, mentoring, and training.

As scientists, those experiences motivate us, too, and push us to find new ways to support our community. To gather some ideas, we asked what you thought were the most important ways a scientific society like GSA could serve you. The replies spanned a huge range, but in general they dovetailed closely with the ideas that emerged from our Blue Sky Meeting in May. The most common suggestions were:

• Advocate for science and scientists to policymakers;
• Help communicate and defend science to the public and policymakers;
• Promote basic research and the applications of genetics;
• Organize conferences and publish journals;
• Provide professional development, including for non-academic jobs; mentoring resources and job search help;
• Provide networking opportunities and creative ways for scientists to interact;
• Offer travel grants to attend conferences;
• Promote diversity and inclusion in our field.

To codify and prioritize these ideas in the context of a larger GSA vision, we dedicated most of the Board of Directors meeting in June to discussing the path forward. We are now forming working groups to help us create a strategic framework and gather more data to inform it. Although we won’t have the completed framework until the next Board meeting in December, there were a few highlights from our conversation that I think are worth sharing now:

1. GSA’s new Early Career Scientist programs, led by Director of Engagement and Development Sonia Hall, have been highly successful and fulfill a clear community need. These include the Early Career Scientist Leadership and Professional Development Program, the GENETICS Peer Review Training Program, New Faculty Forum, poster viewing invitation initiative, and more.
2. There is also interest in programs supporting members in mid- and late- career stages. There was particular concern about the funding difficulties of mid-career researchers, but also discussion of ways for retirees to remain engaged with the community.
3. Building on the hard work of our Early Career Scientist Diversity Subcommittee, we are forming a regular committee dedicated to researching and implementing meaningful diversity and inclusion initiatives.
4. We are revising our conference code of conduct and investigating best practice in this area.
5. We are forming a Conference Childcare Committee to ensure caregivers are supported at GSA Conferences.
6. We need to find new ways to empower our members to join in with our advocacy efforts, to engage effectively with the public and policymakers, and communicate the value of their research.
7. GSA needs funding to implement the new vision and ensure its programs remain financially viable.  We are therefore currently drafting plans to expand fundraising efforts within the society.
8. Last but not least, we believe that GSA should represent all of genetics and will thus be working to strengthen the representation not only of experimental organisms (the traditional “model organisms”) but also of agricultural species and species of ecological value.

Clearly, there’s a lot to do! I’m looking forward to the next half year to codify these principles and begin constructing the path to a sustainable GSA that will represent and advocate for all geneticists at all stages of their careers.

As scientists, we do a lot of talking. Whether presenting at conferences, engaging during meetings, or discussing the latest results with lab members—there is a lot to talk about! But it is at least as important to make time for listening in order to keep pace with scientific advances and to take the pulse of a community.

Taking the time to listen is doubly critical in times of change and especially important for the President of a large society. That is why I and the rest of the GSA Board of Directors kicked off our new strategic planning initiative by stopping to listen to you — members of our community.

In just one week, we received over 900 responses to our community survey, which gathered input on the major challenges you face, what you are excited about, and how our science is intersecting with society at large. We heard from faculty, students, postdocs, research scientists, visiting scholars, professors emeritus, technicians, academic advisors, educators, database curators, adjuncts, and group leaders, among others. Respondents hailed from more than 40 different countries, use approaches ranging from molecular genetics to evolutionary genetics, and study hundreds of organisms, from Aspergillus to zebrafish. Crucially, you talked about a wide range of challenges and concerns, and the aggregate data is starting to reveal some fascinating trends.

This fantastic response helped us bring your voices straight into the recent “Blue Sky” meeting, where 20 key opinion leaders representing various GSA communities and interests spent a productive day and a half brainstorming ideas and dreaming up critical new directions for our Society. It was enormously exciting and rewarding to spend the day in discussion and contemplation with such passionate and thoughtful people.  Their ideas and yours will now form the basis of a blueprint for the GSA’s 5–10 year Strategic Plan.

Of course, channeling all the new energy and Blue Sky thinking into concrete plans and executing them will be challenging. This week, we will be taking the results of the Blue Sky meeting and community survey to the Board of Directors to start formulating a strategic framework. To keep you abreast of developments, I will be posting a summary of the Board conversation in the coming weeks.

Lastly, even as we begin formulating a strategy, the listening will continue. Making our goals a reality will require more research and analysis over the coming year, including additional topic-specific surveys and in-depth interviews. Watch out for more chances to shape GSA’s future direction and feel free to send me your thoughts and ideas any time at society@genetics-gsa.org!

GSA President Jeannie Lee invites your input.

Like everything right now, science is changing fast. It seems like every time I look up from my work, the view has shifted, and the landscape is a little less familiar. This speed can be both exciting and disorienting, but either way, it pays to scan the horizon sometimes. As President of the GSA Board of Directors, I want to ensure the Society does exactly that.

The GSA Board, the GSA staff, and the many volunteers on our committees work hard to serve the genetics and model organism communities, but as is true for many organizations, most of the time we have our nose to the grindstone just to get things done—whether it’s the next issue of our journals, the next conference, the next travel award deadline, or the latest budget.

But if we’re to keep up with changing times to truly serve science, the Society must occasionally pause to ask some tough questions. Where are we going? Where should we be going? What does the future look like? How can we shape that future?

In this spirit, we have initiated a strategic planning process, the first step of which will be a “blue sky” meeting to come up with new ideas and dream up possible futures. Blue sky meetings encourage participants to think creatively while setting aside real-world barriers like time, cost, and politics.

The conversation will bring together a small group of stakeholders from both within and beyond GSA, including Prachee Avasthi (University of Kansas Medical Center), Giovanna Collu (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai), Lynn Cooley (Yale University), Cassandra Extavour (Harvard University), Marnie Halpern (Carnegie Institution for Science), Mark Johnston (University of Colorado School of Medicine), Rob Kulathinal (Temple University), Erica Larschan (Brown University), Terry Magnuson (UNC Chapel Hill), Mark Peifer (UNC Chapel Hill), Buck Samuel (Baylor College of Medicine),  Jordan Ward (UC Santa Cruz), and Ting Wu (Harvard Medical School), among others to be announced soon.

To help this crucial first step of thinking big, we need input from you. We’d like to better understand what’s on your mind right now. What challenges are holding you and your science back? What are you most excited about for the future? How is our field impacting society?

We hope you’ll take the brief 10 minutes to fill in this survey. You’ll be entered into the drawing to win one of 40 $20 Amazon, Starbucks, or Worldwide Visa gift cards, and for every completed survey we’ll donate $1 to UNICEF and Partners in Health (up to $1000). We want to hear from all parts of the community, including students, postdocs, research scientists, faculty, industry researchers, and educators.

I think you’ll find it rewarding to take a break from your own daily tasks to look at the long view for a few minutes. It’s the only way to make sure we’re heading in the right direction.

Update, April 26, 2018: The survey is now closed, thank you for the fantastic response! If you have feedback or suggestions, send an e-mail to society@genetics-gsa.org.