Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution, Council and Business Meetings, 2019, Manchester, United Kingdom

Council Meeting

I. Call to Order

President Aoife McLysaght called the council meeting to order at 8:30 AM, Sunday, July 21, 2019. In attendance were President Aoife McLysaght, President-elect Marta Wayne, Councilors Joanna Masel, Jay Storz, Nicolas Galtier, Belinda Chang, Mary O’Connell, and Beth Shapiro, Secretary David Pollock, Treasurer Jeff Thorne, MBE Editor-in-Chief Sudhir Kumar (ex officio), and GBE Editors-in-Chief Laura A. Katz (ex officio) and Adam Eyre-Walker (ex officio).

Noncouncil Members in Attendance

Lulu Stader (Executive Administrator) also attended. Simon Lovell, Cathy Walton, Chris Knight, and Daniela Delneri (Manchester—SMBE2019); Christian Landry and Nadia Aubin-Horth (Quebec—SMBE2020); Georgii Bazykin (Moscow—SMBE2022 candidate); Alex Beaumont and Adam Leary (Oxford University Press); Christopher Lapine (Allen Press); and Matt Davenport, James Hampton, and Barbara Calderwood (MCI) attended part of the meeting.

II. Approval of Minutes

The council had previously approved the minutes of the 2018 Council and Business meeting, published as an open access article in the January 2019 issue of MBE.

III. Treasurer’s Report

Treasurer Jeff Thorne summarized the financial state of the Society, with details on journal and meeting revenue and expenses. The records show that the Society is in excellent financial health, although last year spending slightly more than we make. More details can be found in the Treasurer’s report.

IV. Secretary’s Report

Secretary David Pollock briefly reviewed the council actions over the preceding year, including an AAAS initiative with regard to harassment policy.

V. Election of SMBE Officers

A nominations committee to nominate candidates for the position of President-elect and two council positions was chaired by James McInerney (Nottingham, UK). The members of the committee were Judith Mank (Vancouver, Canada), Liliana Milani (Bologna, Italy), Shu-Miaw Chaw (Sinica, China), Geoff McFadden (Melbourne, Australia), and David Pollock, SMBE Secretary (Denver, CO), ex officio, as per by-laws. The membership of the society was informed by email of the committee composition in early 2018 and asked to nominate candidates for the various positions.

The nominees for President-elect were Anne Yoder (Durham, NC) and Harmit Malik (Seattle, WA). The nominees for Secretary were Todd Vision (Chapel Hill, NC) and Nadia Singh (Eugene, OR). The councilor nominees were Sarah Schaack (Portland, OR), Mar Alba (Barcelona, Spain), Yves Van de Peer (Gent, Belgium), and Stephen Wright (Toronto, Canada).

The membership of the society was issued online ballot details through Allen Press with the voting period open from May 16 to June 27, 2019. The results of the ballot are that the President-elect is Harmit Malik, the Secretary is Nadia Singh, and the newly elected councilors are Sarah Schaack and Stephen Wright.

The council does and will continue to remind the nominating committee every year of gender and geographic diversity goals, but maintains flexibility in how this is achieved by the committee.

VI. Editors’ Reports

The Editors in Chief of MBE and GBE gave reports on the current state of their journals (see separate editors’ reports). There is a healthy submission rate for both journals, with selective acceptance rates, and both journals are working to improve or maintain gender and geographic balance on the editorial boards. There was some discussion on doing more to advertise our publication model, with low article processing charges, and that because it is a society journal, money is spent on research and travel grants for scientists. In addition, there was some interest in moving more MBE rejections to GBE. Oxford University Press gave a presentation on their work on the journals. There was considerable discussion about the expected impact of Plan S and related initiatives such as the one from the Wellcome Trust. There was a unanimous vote to decide on journal impact at an extraordinary Council meeting in February, when more information will be available, ideally with outgoing Council members present.

VII. Other Activities

Future Annual Meetings

The next annual meeting of the society will be held from June 28 to July 2, 2020 in Quebec, Canada. The 2021 meeting will be held in Auckland, New Zealand. By council vote, it was decided that the 2022 annual meeting will be held in Ferrara, Italy.

Satellite Meetings and Interdisciplinary (Regional) Meetings

Councilors Mary O’Connell and Joanna Masel organized review of satellite meetings and Nicolas Galtier reviewed interdisciplinary meeting proposals. It was voted to fund proposed satellite meetings in Oeiras, Portugal (“Evolution of Reproduction”), Santa Cruz, California (“Evolution of Meiosis”), Tempe, Arizona (“Mechanisms of Cellular Evolution”), and an interdisciplinary (regional) meeting in Tel Aviv, Israel (“First Evolutionary Biology Meeting in Israel”).

Undergraduate Mentoring and Diversity Program

Councilor Joanna Masel organized the undergraduate mentoring and diversity program at the annual meeting with help from Mary O’Connell.

Allan Wilson Junior Award for Independent Research

This award is given to outstanding members of the SMBE community who are in the early stages of an independent research career. The 2019 recipient was Claudia Bank (Gulbenkian Science Institute, Portugal).

Margaret Dayhoff Mid-Career Award

This award is intended for outstanding members of the SMBE community who are in the midst of their research careers. The 2019 recipient was Patricia Wittkopp (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI).

Motoo Kimura Lifetime Achievement Award

This award is intended for outstanding senior members of the SMBE community. The 2019 recipient was Wen-Hsiung Li (University of Chicago, Chicago, IL).

Community Service Award

This is awarded periodically and is intended for members of SMBE who have provided exceptional service to SMBE and the broader scientific community. The 2019 recipient was Cathy Kennedy.

Poster Award Recipients

President-elect Marta Wayne ran the award process at the meeting with the assistance of judges. The 2019 postdoctoral best poster awards went to Yevgeniy Raynes (Brown University, Providence, RI), Yirong Wang (Peking University, China), and Joachim Surm (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel). The best poster for graduate students went to Kirsten Verster (University of California, Berkeley), Yan Ling Iris Chiu (University of Toronto, Canada), and James Horton (University of Bath, UK). The best poster for undergraduate students went to Sarah Medley (Oakland University, Rochester Hills, MI), Zane Kliesmete (Ludwig Maximillian University of Munich, Germany), and Imtiyaz Enayatali (New York University Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates).

Fitch Prize Winner and Graduate/Postdoctoral Travel Awards

Belinda Chang, Jay Storz, and Aoife McLysaght organized the Fitch speaker, travel, and registration awards, with a committee of judges including councilors and other faculty members of SMBE. Many people applied for the combination of the Fitch Prize, travel, and registration awards. President-elect Marta Wayne chaired the Fitch Symposium. A committee of judges appointed by Aoife McLysaght selected the Fitch Prize recipient, Matthew R. Jones (University of Montana, Missoula, MT) for a talk titled “The origin and spread of locally adaptive seasonal camouflage in snowshoe hares.”

Best Graduate Student Paper Awards

The MBE best student paper award for papers published in 2018 was given to Jean Cury (Institut Pasteur, France) for the paper “Host range and genetic plasticity explain the coexistence of integrative and extrachromosomal mobile genetic elements,” and the GBE best paper award was given to Bárbara D. Bitarello (University of São Paulo, Brazil) for the paper “Signatures of long-term balancing selection in human genomes.”

Carer Awards

Nicolas Galtier oversaw the selection of the Carer awards, which provided funds as needed in addition to the free on-site childcare. Awards were provided to people in a wide range of career stages.

Allen Press

Chris Lapine of Allen Press will send out renewal messages to 314 members, and plans to revamp the website. It was decided that Allen Press would interact with MCI to link the abstract submission and registration portals with membership information and allow people to join SMBE during registration.

Equal Opportunity Initiative

There were no submissions of initiatives to promote gender and other diversity. Councilor Beth Shapiro plans to advertise this better in the coming year.

Updating By-Laws

President-elect Marta Wayne chaired a committee (with David Pollock, Mary O’Connell, and Nicolas Galtier) to propose changes to society by-laws. The proposed changes were approved by Council and passed by an email vote during October 11–26, 2019, with 368 in favor out of 380 members voting.

Other Business

The council discussed how to better support the local organizing committee (LOC) for future meetings, including modifications to the conference guidelines and LOC contract letter. Councilors Joanna Masel, Marta Wayne, and Executive Administrator Lulu Stader will work on this. President McLysaght will investigate diversity projects such as placement of summer internship students from diverse countries to broaden the SMBE fold. The Council voted to abolish caps for flights and accommodations for future travel awards, with request to keep costs reasonable. President-elect Marta Wayne looked into carbon offsets and crafted a proposal in collaboration with Christian Landry of the Quebec LOC; in November, Council voted to make a $10,000 US contribution to carbon offsets (∼$10 per participant) and will provide an additional $10,000 US matching carbon offsets by providing links to three companies at registration. There will also be a workshop at lunch the first day to discuss future steps, to be reported on at the Business meeting. SMBE’s goal is to completely offset the carbon cost for the meeting. Councilor Nicolas Galtier agreed to work on the Peer Community Initiative separately by email.

Business Meeting

I. Call to Order

President Aoife McLysaght called the council meeting to order at 12 PM on July 23, 2019.

II. Business

The president summarized the discussion at the council meetings, announced the location of the 2020, 2021, and 2022 meetings, announced the outcomes of the elections, and congratulated the organizers of the Manchester meeting. She also thanked the nominations committee and the various award committees for their service.