Hello from Charlottesville, Virginia! As we get started with another year, I wanted to give you all a re-cap of what has been going on through the last year and what to look forward to in the months ahead.
It was another record setting year for student events at the annual meeting. We matched 100 mentors to 171 mentees to present the largest conference mentorship event in ASB’s history. We also learned through the matching process that ASB is split between Mint Chocolate Chip and Cookie Dough as the favorite ice cream flavor, and 25% of participants say that running is their favorite sport to participate in. To make this event possible, we had one-third of our mentors trying out this program for the first time, while another third were returning to help out for at least their fifth time. We are incredibly grateful to all of the mentors that help us with this event every year and hope that you all enjoy it as much as the students do.
The Student Committee also leveraged the nature of our virtual conference to host 2 professional development roundtable events. The virtual roundtables covered 14 topics, were led by 29 awesome hosts, and were attended by more than 200 students asking countless questions. Thanks once again to all of the hosts that volunteered their time to come and answer questions from the students of ASB. I also would like to thank the Student Committee for helping put these events together (especially Jenny Leestma, Katie Knaus, Kristen Jakubowski, and Andrew Vigotsky). This year’s committee is already hard at work with plans for NACOB in Ottawa this summer, and we hope to see you all there!
Between conferences, we are working to be as useful to students as possible. We are continuing to add more and more student chapters across the country to bring students of different disciplines together at their own institutions. If you are interested in starting a chapter at your school, check out the website to get started . Additionally, the Student Committee has been working with the ASB Early Career Faculty Affinity group to bring you all the Near-Peer Speaker Series, where students can hear from some of the most newly minted faculty in the Society about how they got to their positions and what their goals are for the future. Beyond this, the ASB Student Committee is hard at work developing and piloting two more programs we hope to be ready to release in the Spring, so stay tuned!
Finally, I would like to remind all of you about the various opportunities that are available to you through ASB. There are education and career resources on the ASB website, as well as postings about all of our award programs. To name a few: the Graduate Student Grant-in-Aid (GIA) rewards promising students with research support of $2,000 for one year; Student Travel Awards provide funds to present at the annual meeting; the B-SURE program is new this year and is providing 8 weeks of support of for an undergraduate student to intern in a biomechanics lab over the summer; and the GRADE Initiative is supporting DEI efforts in biomechanics. Be sure to check out the ASB website to learn more and apply for these opportunities!
I hope the new year is going well for all of you so far and please feel free to reach out about any ASB student related matters via email. I look forward to continuing my work as your student representative through this summer!