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Hello Members! Usually I’m all business in these columns, but I hope you’ll indulge me in my final entry as your ASB Secretary as I sprinkle my updates with my true cheeseball nature. We are heading to Wisconsin after all…

Speaking of cheese curds – I mean Wisconsin – I started as your Secretary at the exact time I was finishing up my postdoc at UW Madison to start a new career venture as a AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Science & Technology Policy fellow. While I was excited to work in a new field at the National Institutes of Health, I knew I would deeply miss being surrounded by my favorite people – biomechies. I was thrilled to be voted in as Secretary, not only to serve the Society that I am so fond(ue) of, but also because of the excuse it gave me to stay connected with the brie-lliant ASB community.

I am proud and grateful to have worked with a group of dedicated volunteers on the Membership Committee* the last few years. We were thoughtful about identifying the barriers and needs of members, and helping the Society adapt and evolve with our growing membership. To give you a sense of our growth, we had 311 new members by the Early Bird Registration deadline this year (compared to 271 last year)! Our efforts as a Committee led to two major proposed changes to the ASB bylaws:

  1. Remove the need for two sponsors to approve each new ASB membership and instead move to a periodic review of new memberships by the Membership Committee. This change would alleviate the barrier of individuals having to already know someone in ASB to sponsor their membership and would substantially speed up new member onboarding.
  2. Remove the existing disciplinary categories, which have historically been unequally distributed among the members, and instead propose new language that states “The Nominating Committee should assemble a slate of candidates that is representative of the ASB membership and its values, while fostering interdisciplinary cooperation among the Society.” We also developed guidance to ensure fair and interdisciplinary representation at the level of ASB leadership selection during the nominating process, award reviews, and other Society proceedings.

Thanks to all of you gouda ASB members who voted in Elections, and who officially approved these changes! We continue to have a fantastic response rate in our Society. This year, 41% of all members invited voted in elections (338 regular members voted of 625 invited, 117 student members voted of 472 invited). And a huge thanks to the Podium staff, especially Cendrine De Vis, for helping administer the Elections for ASB!

And doesn’t it feel like life is just a big cheese wheel coming full circle when I say that I will end my tenure as Secretary back in Madison where it all began? There’s really no Society cheddar – I mean, better!!

*Membership Committee volunteers include: New Member Application Sub-Committee (Saikat Pal, JJ Wallace, Henry Wang, Feng Yang, Nicole Rendos, Nate Robey); Disciplinary Categories Sub-Committee (Jean McCrory, Ke Song, Mathew Varre, and Noah Rosenblatt); Recruitment and Retention Sub-Committee (Tarang Jain, Lisa MacFadden, Maria Pasquale, Shima Jalalian, Tim Burkhart, Michael Harris, Sarah Roelker, Ben Binder-Markey, Brooke Slavens, and Laurel Kuxhaus).