Thank you for making it another great year for biomechanics and for our Society! Following on a beautiful and engaging annual meeting by the lake in Madison last year, we have another beautiful and engaging meeting planned overlooking the river in Pittsburgh this year. Every member of the Executive Board has been busy planning events, choosing award winners, getting those membership requests approved, and keeping the society running. I am continually in awe of all the volunteer hours that the board members and all of you serving on committees have done – thank you, thank you, thank you!
This year the ASB has crossed some important milestones and weathered some important challenges. At the top of everyone’s mind, the rapid changes at the federal and state levels have forced us to take a variety of actions. Some reimagining and renaming of activities and committees has been necessary to preserve all of our members’ ability to participate. Please rest assured that we remain steadfastly committed to supporting all of our members & the biomechanics community, to creating an environment where everyone feels valued and safe, and to advocating for the needs of our community with the broader society. To that end, we encourage you to leverage our membership in the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering’s Council of Societies, an advocacy organization that provides many resources that all of us can use to communicate with our elected representatives. You can get to them through our Advocacy page under the Resources menu on our website – please use their resources to help you send a letter to a member of Congress, talk to your neighbors about what indirect costs are used for, or take another action! ASB has also signed on to several letters to agencies and Congress, which are listed on our Advocacy page as well.
2025 has also been a banner year for philanthropy at ASB. We recently announced a transformative $500,000 gift from the De Luca Foundation that is targeted to broadening participation in biomechanics. Especially in a time of uncertain federal funding for science, we greatly appreciate this support. If you or someone you know would like to help further ASB’s mission at any amount, it’s easy to donate now! We welcome conversations about planned giving, employer matching, and corporate donations as well.
Lastly, we have been working on a renewal of the ASB Strategic Plan since last August. Many of you have contributed your thoughts and feedback, and there’s still time to read the draft and provide your feedback by July 27. This plan will represent our priorities for ASB over the next five years, so make sure your input is included.
See you next month!