Resources

General

Each year, the outgoing Chair proposes committee memberships and they are discussed and agreed at the Annual Meeting in March. After each election, the current Chair congratulates those elected, refers them to the Bylaws and Operating procedures, and gently points out the expected workload. The current Chair, Chair-Elect, and Vice Chair meet with the newly elected Vice Chair prior to the Regular Executive Committee meeting in March. 

A vacancy in any other elected office shall be filled with an interim appointment (or left unfilled) by the Executive Committee until such time as the vacancy can be filled by regular election procedures. If possible, such a vacancy should be filled by a Member at Large (and a new interim Member at Large then appointed). Bylaws give the Chair sole discretion to appoint an interim MAL, a best practice may be to ask a candidate who was willing to serve on the ballot in a recent election, but not elected. We know they were willing to serve and they were already considered by the Nominations Cmte.  After the next election, the interim officer can return to being Member at Large if their term is still ongoing. Alternatively, the interim officer is eligible to stand for the next election if chosen by the Nominations committee.

Bylaws give the Chair sole discretion to appoint an interim MAL. A best practice will be to ask one of the unsuccessful candidates in the recent election. We know they were willing to serve when being asked to run, and the Nominations Cmte considered them already.

Duties of Officers

In addition to duties described in the Bylaws:

• The Chair has overall responsibility for the operation of the Division, shall set the agenda of the Executive Committee and Business meetings, and preside at all meetings of the Executive Committee and Business Session of the Division, when possible.

• Sec/treas maintains Minutes and Governance on DBIO’s APS website: To request changes, use the service desk: https://apsphysics.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/14

• Sec/treas manages the budget and handles requests for reimbursement.

• It is advised that the unit Chair and the sec/treas meet regularly to operate the DBIO businesses.

• It is advised the Chairline meet as needed to share information of committee operations and formulate multi-year strategies for improving DBIO operations.

Meetings of Chairline and Executive Committee

Each year, the Chair sets regular (typically ~quarterly) meetings of the Executive Committee. While most work is done at the committee level, it is recommended to have at least the following meetings of the full ExComm:

• March - In person at March Meeting

• April/May - Virtual, to “Onboard” new committee members. Spring

• July/August - needed if there are any unit processes

• January/February - (1 or 2 meetings) Virtual, to review processes of past year, approve Operating Procedures

• The unit Chair set the agenda of each Executive Committee meeting and the S&T shared the meeting agenda to the members in advance.

• The unit Chair sent updates to the Executive Committee members regularly (~bimonthly).

Recordkeeping and Transparency

A) To record (and make available to ExComm and future iterations of the committee) the rubrics used to evaluate candidates in different committees. This should be in Operating Procedures. 

B) The S/T should record (and make available as needed) list of all candidates who ran for election (not just the winners).

C) To communicate clearly to applicants or nominees what makes for a strong application or nomination

Expectations of Professional Conduct

• Adhere to APS Ethical Guidelines

• All discussions within Committees are to be kept confidential. 

• Nomination information is to be discarded after deliberations

• Cmte members are responsible for self-identifying Conflicts of Interest they have with nominations & applications being discussed.

• COI definition is found here  & any reason you may have bias for a nomination/case

• Disclose your COI to the Cmte Chair prior to opening nomination materials

• Cmte comes to unanimous agreement on how COI should be dealt with

Expectations of Professional Conduct

• Adhere to APS Ethical Guidelines
• All discussions within Committees are to be kept confidential. 
• Nomination information is to be discarded after deliberations
• Cmte members are responsible for self-identifying Conflicts of Interest they have with nominations & applications being discussed.
• COI definition is found here  & any reason you may have bias for a nomination/case
• Disclose your COI to the Cmte Chair prior to opening nomination materials
• Cmte comes to a unanimous agreement on how COI should be dealt with

Unit Conflict Resolution

If a conflict should arise, all attempts to resolve amicably within a Cmte should be made. As needed, the current DBIO chair can be solicited for advice.  The past DBIO chair serves as ombudsperson.  Guidance on APS unit operations can also be obtained from Cortney Bougher at APS. Questions about policies for APS Honors, Award & Fellowship Cmtes should be directed to Jacob Robertson at APS (Honors Program Manager, American Physical Society, robertson@aps.org)

Best Practices for Constituting Intentionally Diverse Committees and Programs

In all activities, DBIO officers and committees strive to reflect, and improve upon, the diversity of our community. This includes diversity across multiple axes including (but not limited to): gender and gender identity; member of a historically marginalized group; disability status, ethnicity; category of institution or employment (including higher education/industry/national lab, and within education, undergrad-serving vs research colleges and universities); geographic location; scientific field and expertise; and academic lineage. Including members with intersectional diverse identities is valuable. 

Particular efforts to include groups historically marginalized in STEM: Women, persons with disabilities, and three racial and ethnic groups—Blacks, LatinX, and Native Americans- should be made.

Committees

Canvassing

2022 Committee: (Chair) Margaret Cheung

This is an ad hoc unit activity (not in bylaws). Current DBIO Chair is in charge of canvassing activities, obtains help from Executive Cmte and other members as needed. In 2022, the activities done to solicit a diverse nomination/application pool of APS Fellows and Delbruck Prize Nominees and Nominations for Executive Cmte were as follows:

• DBIO S&T maintains a google form throughout the year to solicit ideas for strong individuals for nominations for honors and ExComm. This form was advertised at our Business meeting, as well as several emails and tweets in the spring 2022.   

• Emails were sent out to all DBIO members asking for their input for nominations. ExComm was requested to submit names to google sheet. 

• In April, a list of all fellowship eligible APS members and the list of active/rollover fellowship nominations from APS Honors.  The list was to identify strong applicants for Canvassing Chair to reach out to individuals who could serve as nominators for strong candidates - these were senior colleagues who had previously served as mentors or collaborators.  

• Canvassing for Delbruck may require a multi-year plan and improvements should be made. Activities done in 2022, several potential nominators were contacted by the Canvassing Chair.

• Canvassing should be done by the Canvassing Chair for the Thesis prize in future years. 

• Canvassing for Nominations Cmte included obtaining a list of all APS-DBIO members as well as a list of all folks who previously agreed to serve on the ballot (whether or not they were elected or not). ExComm was asked if they’d be willing to help; several members helped identify strong members. 

• The S&T maintained the spreadsheets. Given the sensitive nature of canvassing, this information should be kept confidential. 

 

Eligibility of nominators:

• Any individual, except a member of the selection committee, may participate in one nomination per year for a given honor. Participating in a nomination is considered serving as a nominator, serving as a co-sponsor, or writing a letter in support of a nomination submitted by another individual. See APS’ nomination guidelines.

 

Example canvassing email:

 

Professor XXX

 

You are among the most highly cited, and well respected leaders in the field of biological physics/biophysics. It will be my honor to work with a nominator to prepare a packet for nominating you for the Delbruck Prize 2023. The instructions for preparing a nomination packet can be found below. The deadline is June 1st. Please let me know if you have more questions for me or questions about the selection process of the Delbruck Prize.  If you wish, please provide the contact information of a nominator whom I can further reach out to https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/delbruck.cfm

Thank you so much!

Sincerely,

XXX

 

XXX, Ph.D.

Chair (2022-2023), DBIO/APS

Delbruck Prize Committee

2022 Committee: Aihua Xie (Chair), Terence Hwa (’22 Recipient), Jennifer Ross, Joshua Shaevitz, Ibrahim Cisse, Zuzanna Siwy (note: Honors committee such as Fellowship, Delbruck, Early Career, and Doctoral Thesis award, will need an overlapped Vice chair in the committee who will serve in the next year’s committee from now on according to the APS’ pending policies).

• Composition: See Bylaws. Fellows may be drawn on for this duty. Committee members must agree that all their deliberations, and the contents of all nominations, are confidential. No Early Career members on this committee.

* The Canvassing Chair (DBIO Chair) solicited nominations for those persons to help ensure a strong pool. Candidates are not restricted to be DBIO members, nor even to be APS members, or in physics departments.

 

* APS supplies committee Chair with detailed procedures and with all nominations, once the deadline has passed.

 

* DBIO Chair charges committee to consider diversity in all the above aspects. Diversity can also involve levels of biological organization, theory vs experiment, class of institution, established versus new research areas.

 

* Committee Chair (Xie) discussed a selection rubric for evaluation and scoring and the  the case of conflict of interest (e.g. conflicted committee member is excused for part of the discussion). Committee members should not themselves nominate any candidate, though they may previously have done so for an active holdover candidate.

 

* Before examining nominations, each year's committee should begin by coming to  a consensus on philosophy of the award; for example, "To consider the impact of nominee's research on Biological Physics and Physics more broadly." The committee has had the flexibility to decide for themselves the relative weights of these considerations as well as:

 - Single breakthrough versus sustained career accomplishment.

 - Impact outside Biological Physics  versus inside.

 - Impact through mentoring versus primary literature contributions.

 - International vs US,

with the overarching goal that we wish to identify a scientist whom we are proud to hold up as a model. We prefer to award the prize to one scientist in the same year.

A selection rubric for evaluation & scoring used in 2022

The selection committee met to create a rubric for evaluation of the nomination packets. The following selection criteria were evaluated and used in the quantitative scoring:

A. Quality of research achievement (onetime or lifetime) (eg. originality, innovation…)

B. Discovery of new principles or invention of new technology in biological physics

C. Impact on physics, biology, and/or medicine (biol. Phys. research is often multidisciplinary)

D. Diversity (gender & ethnic groups)

The first three criteria were equally weighted in the scoring. The averaged scores from the first three criteria (A-C) were used to rank the nominees. The diversity score was used as a tiebreaker if the top two nominees are close in their scores.

 

The quantitative evaluation data and the final selection in 2022

We ranked the nominees based on their average scores. After scoring, the selection committee met via Zoom to discuss the research achievements and impacts of the top two nominees. The final selection was made by anonymous votes. One mechanism was designed in advance and used to ensure rational votes (not to be pursued by an eloquent committee member). The selection committee members were allowed to have more than 24 hours to process the information from the Zoom meeting before casting their anonymous votes

* DBIO Chair as an ex officio to confirm diversity is carefully discussed. DBIO Chair only votes in case of deadlock. Otherwise, the committee has no discussion with the Excomm to ensure independence.

 

* Committee chair forwards a decision directly to the APS and waits for APS approval. The committee chair sends the report and informs the decision  to the Unit Chair  as a courtesy. The decision is not to be shared with anyone else, including awardee. It is easy to forget this, so the committee chair firmly instructs the committee. 

Community Engagement Committee

2022 Committee: (Chair) Nancy Forde; (from the APS DBIO Executive Committee) Margaret Gardel, Suliana Manley, Sarah Marzen, Andrew Mugler, Josh Shaevitz, Jianhua Xing; (additional community members) Ré Mansbach (Asst Prof at Concordia U), Mohammad Nooranidoost (PDF at Florida State U), Orrin Shindell (Asst Prof at Trinity U)

 

For 2022-2023, the community engagement committee undertook two main tasks. Member Sarah Marzen revived the DBIO Newsletter and has done an excellent job at providing ~quarterly newsletters to the DBIO community, which summarize DBIO-sponsored events and promote APS-related opportunities such as awards, publications, etc. We also continued to organize and host approximately monthly online events throughout the year.

For online events, we wished to build on the success of the Living History (LH) online program initiated during the pandemic, but find a distinctive focus since LH continued independent of DBIO.  The following is the operating procedure that was followed, which should be re-evaluated annually to see if this process best serves the ongoing needs of our diverse DBIO community.

The engagement committee met in April 2022 and planned a series of monthly events during the year. Members each volunteered to lead one event in an area of interest to them. This helped to distribute the workload!  The working spreadsheet is accessible here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1u4Xvyw6KJWxRUHESjVH8yDM1Cjd3aZSDn_3bGNNtlUE/edit#gid=0. When finalized, information about events was posted to the APS DBIO page, here: https://engage.aps.org/dbio/resources/workshops-networking

We aimed for a range of events that could cover a variety of interests in the DBIO community, hoping to have “something for everyone”. Events were led by different members of the DBIO Engagement Committee, ranging from our postdoc member and assistant professors through to senior professors. When selecting panellists for the events, organizers were advised to ensure that diverse voices were found.

In one case, a proposed event targeting networking for Black DBIO members did not take place, as we could not find a Black DBIO member to help lead the event and did not hear back from Black in Physics week organizers about having us help do the work and publicity for a Biophysics event during that week.  

We were able to add an additional event around teaching of biological physics, brought to us by DBIO member Catherine Crouch (Swarthmore). It is good to be able to add such community-proposed events throughout the year and these could be more broadly solicited in the future.

For each event, the following operating procedure was followed:

1. Once date, time, title, panellists and description were confirmed by the organizer, the committee chair (Nancy) did the following:

1. Request that APS set up a Zoom link for the event (https://apsphysics.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/14/group/30/create/10442)

2. Once the Zoom link was set, request that APS update our events page with the description of the event and a Zoom registration link (https://apsphysics.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/14/group/30/create/10367).

3. Once the website was live, request that the event organizer/moderator take responsibility for advertising. The following instructions were sent:

Example Email to the event organizer/moderator:

“The website and Zoom registration link for “your” DBIO event are now live: https://engage.aps.org/dbio/resources/workshops-networking

Can you please do the following?

• Post to Engage, advertising the event and including a link to the Zoom registration and to our Workshops & Networking page.  

• 1-2 weeks prior to the event, ask Andrew Mugler to send an email about the event to all DBIO members

• Post a reminder to Engage ~5 days prior to your event 

• Send info to Jules Nde (jndekeng@uw.edu) to Tweet (PhD student in Margaret C’s lab who will be handling our DBIO Twitter account)

• Ask panellists to complete the permission form so we can post a recording after the event: APS Permission Agreement form

• Ask Sarah Marzen to include information about this event in the next newsletter.”

2. APS opens the event on Zoom and readies it for recording. They transfer host duties to the moderator and/or the Chair of the Engagement Committee 15 minutes prior to the event start. We hit record when the event starts. Chair of the Engagement Committee makes a brief intro to the DBIO engagement committee and encourages attendees to attend future events, view past events on our website. Then moderator runs the event. Scheduled for 60 minutes; good to keep to this, though some events had discussions that continued briefly afterwards.

3. APS sends a notification to the Chair of the Engagement Committee that the recording is available on their YouTube channel. the Chair of the Engagement Committee requests a website update (https://apsphysics.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/14/group/30/create/10367) to replace the Zoom registration link with a link to the video recording.

4. The Chair of the Engagement Committee notifies Newsletter Editor (Sarah) that a recording is available, so they can review it and write up a description of the event for the DBIO newsletter.

Attendance at online events ranged from 13 to 60.  Having S&T (Andrew Mugler) send a dedicated email to DBIO members about the event was correlated with increased attendance (vs. using Engage platform only for advertising). Best attended events included the Future of Biological Physics discussion, Teaching Biological Physics, and Applying for Faculty Positions.

Membership Engagement Committee

2022 Committee: (Chair) Jianhua Xing

One main task of the committee is to organize the membership engagement activities at the APS March meeting. During the meeting, the division will have one table for the committee members to interact with current and potential DBiol members, with small gifts imprinted with the DBiol logo distributed. 

Through discussions with the engagement committee members, the committee worked out a purchase plan of small gifts and reusable materials that was approved by the executive committee. 

The DBIO compensates the MM registration fee for the Chair of the Membership Committee as this position requires the Chair to stay throughout most of the week during the MM and especially to arrive early to set up the membership Table at the MM site and coordinate the volunteers’ schedules.

Note:

1. In early Feburary, APS (Jennifer Ruberto [APS] <ruberto@aps.org>) will send an email to the Unit Chair about the need of volunteers email addresses for Badge Scanning. The Unit Chair needs to look out for this email and delegate this communication to the Community Engagement Chair.

Item	Vendor	Quantity
Table Throw	4imprint	1
pens	4imprint	300
seedcards	4imprint	250
Tote	4imprint	100
sticker	4imprint	1 roll
paper foldscope	Foldscope Instruments Inc.	60
Total Cost: $1,386.27

Note: (1) Plan for MM2023: Before the meeting, we will recruit volunteers to serve on the committee. The sign-up google sheet was distributed over engage, dbio email and slack channel for program committee members/sorters before a few weeks of the MM.The membership drive will focus on days from Monday to Thursday. Most members leave on Friday early afternoon, so they needed time to clean up and pack the materials into their luggages. (2) A DBIO member objected the distribution of live seeds at MM as Live seeds are prohibited in international travels, and some species are even invasive. We should not use seeds anymore.

Example Email:

Dear DBIO members,

We need your help to staff the membership table at the APS March Meeting 2023 in Las Vegas, NV. The goal of the membership table is to recruit and register new members, and help current members renew their membership. Our table will be in the convention hall very close to DBIO technical sessions.

We are looking for volunteers to staff the table for 2 hour blocks throughout the March Meeting. If you’re interested, please enter your name and email in this Google Sheet, or send an email to [Chair of the Membership Committee] at XXX with your availability. Feel free to sign up for as many time slots as you like! We will discuss how we will run the event when we get closer to the start of the March Meeting.

Thank you in advance for your help with this important effort! We look forward to seeing you soon in Las Vegas!

DBIO Membership Committee

XXX , Chair

Program Committee

1. Committee Composition
   

    

   According to the by-law:

   “The Program Committee shall consist of the Chair-Elect, the Chair, the Vice-Chair, the Secretary-Treasurer, and three Members-at-Large appointed by the Chair, upon the recommendation of the Chair-Elect, to staggered three-year terms. “

   2019 committee:

   Phil Nelson (Chair, program chair for DBIO March 2020) Margaret Gardel (2021 chair)

   Vernita Gordon (DBIO Sec/Tres) Meredith Betterton

   Eva-Maria S. Collins Jeff Gore

   Moumita Das Alexandre Morozov

    

   2020 committee:

   Margaret Gardel (Chair, program chair for DBIO March 2021), Margaret Cheung (2022 chair), Huan-Xiang Zhou (DBIO Sec/Tres), Mingming Wu, Taviare Hawkins, Orit Peleg, Moumita Das 

    

   2021 committee:

   Margaret Cheung (Chair, program chair for DBIO March 2022), Josh Shaevitz (2023 program chair), Margaret Gardel (2021 program chair), Moumita Das, Omar Saleh, Taras Pogorelov, Serena Bradde

   2022 Committee: Josh Shaevitz (Chair, Program chair for DBIO March Meeting 2023) 

   Ajay Gopinathan (Tutorial, 2024 Program Chair), Margaret Cheung (2022 program chair), Mugler, Manley, Xing, Forde

   The APS March Meeting Handbook will be sent to the DBIO Program Chair at the end of April (April 25 for MM23). This contains a large amount of information about running the meeting and all relevant APS deadlines. This set of Operating Procedures outlines the main tasks for the Program Committee and DBIO volunteers as a whole. There are many other smaller tasks that the Program Chair carries out and are not discussed below but are well-covered in the APS March Meeting Handbook.

   2. Focus Session Topics  

   There is no limit to the number of focus topics that DBIO can sponsor at the March Meeting. 

   Pre-identified Focus Topics: APS will send the Program Chair a list of focus topics from the last meeting that had significant submissions. These should be automatically carried over to the next year as “Pre-identified Focus Topics”. Once these topics are agreed upon by the Program Committee, an email is sent to the DBIO membership asking for volunteers to organize the Pre-identified Focus Topics via a Google Form. Organizers are asked to tweak the topic title and description, advertise and encourage abstract submissions, select invited speakers, sort the topics into sessions, and identify potential session chairs for the meeting. For March Meeting 2023, 63 people volunteered.

   New Focus Topics: New Focus Topics are solicited from the DBIO membership via a Google Form. Submissions are discussed and approved by the Program Committee. As there is no cap to the number of topics, the committee's main goal is to make sure there is not significant overlap between two topics and to encourage a merging of topics if there is.

   Submissions for both Google Forms were due on May 27, 2022.

   Focus topics and any “Standard Sorting Categories” (8 for DBIO in 2023) make up the set of sorting categories available during contributed abstract submission. DBIO had 44 total sorting categories in 2023. The final list of categories was due to APS on June 3, 2022.

   3. Invited Symposia and the APS’ “Invited Nomination System”  

   For the past two years, DBIO has “opted in” to the APS Invited Nomination System (Request due May 6). This is a very flexible system and different units use it differently. DBIO is closing in on an effective pipeline but there is room for improvement in the future.

   Invited Symposia: The APS MM logistics team provides the quota (8 for 2023) for Invited Symposia for each unit based on the size of participation over the past 5 years. It has also been the tradition for several years to host a Symposium organized by the Delbruck Prize winner (which is not decided by the nomination deadline), and thus the Program Committee must choose (N-1) Symposia.

   Invited Symposia are nominated through the APS Nomination System which opens on June 30 and has a submission deadline of August 5. Nominators are asked for a topic description, list of (confirmed) speakers, and talk titles. If the number of submissions is larger than (N-1), then the Program Committee must meet to select the final slate of symposia. The Nomination System allows submissions with speakers that are not confirmed. This has caused issues in the past and DBIO should make a concerted effort to make it known that nominators should secure commitments before submission and the Committee should only select symposia with confirmed speakers.

   The Program Chair and the Delbruck Prize Winner work together to select an appropriate set of diverse speakers for the Delbruck Symposium after the winner is selected. This is often a rushed process but has been successful in the past. 

   Invited Talks for Focus Sessions: The Focus Topics Volunteer Organizers are tasked with selecting invited speakers for the Focus Sessions. Each focus session at the March Meeting can have up to two invited speakers–a hard line for the APS. As the invited talk nominations are due before the contributed abstract submission, there is some noise in this process as we don’t know the final number of sessions for each topic. For the 2023 meeting, some focus topics had far too many invited speakers relative to the number of submitted contributed talks which caused problems during the sorting process. It is suggested that carry-over topics with historical data be allowed 2*(M-1) invited speakers, where M is the number of sessions from the previous year. For new focus topics, it is suggested to allow only two invited speakers.

   4. Sorting the Contributed Abstracts

   After the deadline for contributed abstract submissions, the DBIO abstracts need to be sorted into sessions. Contributed sessions have either: 15 contributed talks; 12 contributed talks + 1 invited talk; or 9 contributed talks + 2 invited talks. In the sorting process, APS pushes for completely full sessions so the process must have some flexibility. Based on the total number of submissions, APS allots DBIO a number of total contributed sessions N=(Num_contributed + 3*Num_invited)/15. This is basically a hard cap from APS. For 2023, DBIO had 690 contributed submissions and 72 invited talks for focus sessions which resulted in 61 total sessions.

   Sorting happens in two phases. For Phase I, DBIO involved all of the 63 volunteers to do a rough sorting of the talks into sessions. Communication was facilitated by the creation of a Slack group. Sorting these rough groupings into the final sessions was performed by a smaller group of volunteers in Phase II. Sorting must be completed by mid-November.

   5. Virtual Meeting

   The APS is holding a fully virtual March Meeting separate from the in-person meeting for the first time in 2023. Abstracts were submitted through the same system as for in-person, with the speaker opting for one or the other. There were no invited symposia for the virtual meeting. DBIO received 49 contributed abstracts for the virtual meeting. This was too few to use the sorting categories to generate even remotely full sessions, so the committee opted to make six sessions based roughly on generate topic and spatial scale, e.g. Molecular Biophysics; Multicellular Phenomena; and Neuroscience and Behavior. There were three invited speakers who chose to speak in the virtual meeting. This is a new experiment for APS/DBIO, and it is likely that this process will change significantly in the coming years. 

   6. Tutorials/Short Courses

   Tutorials are separate workshops held on the Sunday before the March Meeting (March 5, 2023) consisting of four one-hour pedagogical talks on a specific topic. Each tutorial is four hours long (Morning tutorials are 8:30 AM - 12:30 PM, afternoon tutorials are 1:30 - 5:30 PM). Tutorials should be designed to bring researchers up to speed on a new or rapidly developing field or teach a technique to new users. The deadline to submit proposals for Tutorials is typically in July (July 21, 2022)

   Short Courses are unit-led and feature an intensive course on a particular topic relevant to that unit. They are typically one full day (8:30 AM to 5:30 PM) but may vary depending on the course structure and needs. Courses are designed for graduate students, postdocs, and other early-career scientists, though they are open to all conference attendees. The deadline to submit proposals for Short Courses is typically mid-August (August 12, 2022)

   Proposals for Tutorials/Short Courses should include:

   1 A descriptive title

   2 The nominator's name, affiliation, and email address

   3 Names of 1-2 possible organizers

   4 A one-paragraph description addressing timeliness and relevance

   5 Target audience

   A reasonable procedure is to solicit the membership for tutorials/short courses of interest - both interest in attending and interest in delivering - in June. 

   We received some feedback from students regarding interest. Based on responses, two themes were chosen this year (2022) - Machine Learning/Model Inference and Communicating Biological Physics. 

   The Tutorial Chair contacted several experts in these fields who might potentially be interested in delivering these. 4 lecturers for each tutorial were finally confirmed.

   The Chair collaborated with each set of lecturers separately to come up with the details of the proposal (see above) by the deadline.

   Submissions were made to the APS Tutorial Organizer and accepted by APS by late July. 

   APS then follows up with lecturers regarding paperwork for honorarium, materials to share etc.

   7. Timeline of Activities

    

   Apr 20: Email sent to 2023 Program Committee members to schedule first meeting

    

   Apr 26: APS MM 23 Handbook received (link)

    

   May 1:  Opted in the Invited Nomination Systems

   May 3: Email sent to DBIO members re. volunteering and proposing new focus sessions.

    

   May 27: Deadline for volunteering and suggesting new focus topics from DBIO members.

    

   Jun 2:  DBIO Program Committee Meeting to finalize the selections of New Focus Topics and existing sorting categories. The Chair then emailed the Program Chairs of DSOFT and GSNP to discuss co-sponsoring both sets of topics. There is effectively no penalty to co-sponsoring sessions with another unit.

     

   Jun 30: APS Nomination System opens

   Jul 15th: Program Chair submitted the descriptions of the Focus Topics on a google sheet to the APS. The co-organizers copied and pasted the descriptions from the last cycle, or wrote a new one.

   Jul 21: Deadline to submit tutorials

   Aug 5: APS Nomination System closes

   Aug 15: APS Abstract submissions open

   Aug 19: Deadline to submit short courses

   Sep 22: March Meeting Program Committee (including the DBIO chair) meets to discuss symposia grid

   Oct 7: APS emailed invited speakers with formal invitations.

   Nov 21: Phase I Sorting due

   Dec 1: Phase II Sorting due. DBIO completed this on Nov 17.

   Dec 16: Session chair list due to APS

    

   Jan 1 - Mar 6: Many small changes are made to the schedule, speakers pull out, etc. The Program Chair is heavily involved at this point in keeping the system at a simmer.

    

   Feb-Mar 6: Unit Chair and S&T reach out to APS’ Vinaya Sathyasheelappa <sathyash@aps.org> to arrange refreshment, coffee for breaks, and conference rooms for the Executive Meeting and Business Meeting, as well as Town Hall (DBIO paid zoom license fees).

   8. General Notes

   1. For the most part, the APS March Meeting team will only respond to emails from the Program Chair. All communication re. speakers, invitations, problems with sorting etc. should go through the Program Chair.

   2. APS will vet invited speakers (both kinds) and complain to you if (a) a speaker is ineligible (technical invited talk the previous year), or (b) a speaker has been asked to give two invited talks this year (typically in DBIO and some other unit, so you weren’t aware). You’ll have to resolve those conflicts in cooperation with any other unit involved.

   3. The selected invited speakers will be sent letters from APS directly in late October. Suddenly at this point speakers will start to say “well of course I won’t come unless you pay my registration.” Remind session organizers up front that the APS or DBIO won’t waive registration fees. The organizers are welcome to raise funds for their invited speakers, although this did not happen in 2023.

   4. While the nomination system seems very rigid, there is a lot of flexibility if problems arise. It is good for the Program Chair to be well-acquainted with APS staff.

   5. It is common to cosponsor sessions with other units, notably DSOFT, DFD, DCOMP, DMP, DCMP, DPOLY, GSNP, DFED. For focus sessions this involves no cost, as noted above. If an invited session is co-sponsored, it ends up counting only 0.5 towards our quota of invited sessions (so these need to be done in pairs!). Because the abstract numbers affect the assignment of conference rooms, most Units were cautious about co-sponsoring. 

   6. APS doesn’t have a hard deadline for invited abstracts. This means that for every FOCUS session, DBIO must manually keep track of what invited abstracts are still missing and trust those speakers not to pull out. The Program Chair should encourage the sorting volunteers to nag the invited speakers to submit their abstracts sooner rather than later.

   7. Late in the process, the Program Chair requests a room for the annual DBIO Business Meeting. For 2023, this will also be broadcast live over the internet so that infrastructure needs to be set up through APS.

   8. The Program chair should inform the Session chairs who have award winners/new fellows in their sessions that the person is an award winner. Ask for the award to be mentioned in the introduction of the person. 

   9. Logistics and payment regarding Execom meeting, refreshments for the business meetings, and Town Hall were communicated with APS via DBIO’s S&T.

   10. The APS MM Logistics team will pay the hotel expenses for the Unit Program Chair and the Unit S&T.

Nominating Committee

2022 Committee: Gardel (Chair), Mo Das, Lubensky, Nemenman, APS appointee (John Marko)

The Nominations Committee is in charge of identifying capable candidates willing to be put on the ballot for open DBIO Executive Committee positions. Below “Chair” refers to Nominating cmte chair.

1. The Nominations Cmte typically meets 2-4 times in August/September so that the election may occur in October. 

2. Nominees must meet the membership requirements in the Bylaws. 

3. Per Bylaws, if by October 1 as many as five percent of the total Division membership (determined on December 31 of the year preceding the election) suggests the same person for the same office, and that person agrees to run, then that person shall be nominated. The Nominations Committee must then provide enough other nominations for a slate. In 2022, there was consensus that fielding more than the required number of candidates for each open position was undesirable (this means 2 candidates for each open seat).

4. Starting early September, Cmte discusses and draws up a rubric of desirable qualities before discussing any specific individuals.

5. Cmte members circulate some names and Chair annotates the list, especially noting past service. Past service in a lower office was a plus when being considered for higher offices. Any candidate who ran unsuccessfully in the most recent election was not fielded again this time, but could be in future. 

6. Ways to identify candidates:

1. Google form (online tip sheet) to self-suggested and member-suggested names. Advertised at the Annual Meeting in March and again on other occasions via email. All were added to the working list and annotated as above.

2. Canvassing Chair sends an email to the general membership asking for ideas for nominees including self-nominations via the tip sheet. This email must be sent early (April just after the meeting), so that the suggested nominees can be vetted by the nominating committee. 

3. List of past candidates from prior year’s Nominations Cmte Chair

4. Active solicitation of candidates over the course of the year by Executive Cmte members (and in some cases over several years)

5. Brainstorming by the Nominations Cmte

7. Chair consults with APS (Unit Operations Manager, Ericka Stansbury) to make absolutely sure we know which candidates meet eligibility criteria. Note that APS employees, including full-time journal editors, are ineligible due to COI. Also no one may run for DBIO office while also running for office in any other APS unit.

8. Cmte gives careful consideration to diversity along several axes: balance of sub-fields of biological physics, balance of approaches used to study problems (experiment/computation/theory), geographic diversity, institutional diversity. This is considered  not only the proposed new Excomm members but also the composition of the proposed Excomm including existing members that will carry over. Cmte must ensure that two candidates from the same institution are not competing for the same office.

9. As names are selected, Chair proposes to them by email phone, outlines the duties, and offers them a few days to think it over. When a candidate declines to run, cmte goes down its list if necessary adding names until a full slate of willing candidates has been found. 

10. When a candidate agrees to run, the DBIO Secretary/Treasurer requests a photo, short bio, and short statement (<250 words but can be much shorter). In 2022, Chair circulated some samples of past statements. (Photos are not required, but if submitted must be in a 100:124 aspect ratio to upload without skewing. APS can assist with this.)

11. DBIO Sec/Treas, who communicates with the APS (through the Unit Service Desk Email Request Form) submitting the short bios, photos, and statements. The ballot’s “Welcome Page” should also include names of all officers and MALs (and now Early Careers) who will carry over, to let members assess overall diversity.

12. Sec/Tres conducts election online ASAP.  Nov 1 – Dec 1. Election closes Dec 1, and cmte Chair informs all candidates of results of the election (see 2021 sample letter below). Then S/T announces results to members.

13. Sec/Tres informs new ExCom members of the calendar for the ExCom activities to begin orientation, and specifically communicates the dates for their required participation at various events, depending on role.

+=+=+=

Sample letter from cmte Chair:

Dear XX

Thank you for running for the position of XX of the  Division of Biological Physics executive committee, and especially for offering your time, energy, and creativity to DBIO. Congratulations: you have been elected by the DBIO membership to serve the division!

Your service will start this March at the end of the 2022 APS March Meeting.

Your term is a XX years (20XX–20XX).

You are expected to be present for the DBIO Executive Committee dinner and meeting and the DBIO Business Meeting each year.

Traditionally, the Executive Committee meeting is on-site at the March Meeting on Monday.

Traditionally the DBIO Business meeting is on-site at the March Meeting on Tuesday; you will be introduced as a newly elected member of the DBIO executive committee.

The Secretary-Treasurer will be in touch soon to confirm those dates.

I am attaching for your reference:

• The current Bylaws, which outline how DBIO operates. In the attached copy I have highlighted passages about duties of the XXX. We also have a less formal set of Operating Procedures; the current S/T will transmit these to you after a few updates get made.

• A list of other election results appears at the end of this mail. 

I will be making an announcement to the membership soon, but it takes a few days for APS to send those notifications.

Thank you again for your commitment to making DBIO a vibrant community of scholars. Your service helps us to function, grow, and thrive!

Phil Nelson

DBIO Past Chair

Chair, Nominating Committee

+=+=+=

A shorter mail was sent to unsuccessful candidates.

Fellowship Committee

2022 Committee: Gopinathan (Chair), Shaevitz, Fisher, Ashkar, Peleg

1. The Fellowship Committee’s role is to review and rank the qualifications of all nominated fellowship candidates and can not themselves be candidates.

2. The fellowship committee is led by the DBIO Vice-Chair. See Bylaws for its composition. No Early Career members are allowed on this committee. It is recommended that the DBIO Chair-elect sit on the committee.

3. Nominations are due to the APS by June 1. This can be extended by one month through request to the APS. On May 1, one month before the nomination deadline, the committee Chair reviews the roster of nominees and contacts the Canvassing Committee if the pool needs to be expanded.

4. The APS has set out guidelines for Conflicts of Interest (COIs, (https://aps.org/programs/honors/committee.cfm#hTab-conflicts-of-interest-427789-5) along with Ethics Guildlines (https://aps.org/policy/statements/guidlinesethics.cfm). After the nomination deadline, committee members review the list of nominees and disclose to the entire committee any conflicts of interest as described above. The committee then unanimously decides on a response (ranging from case-by-case recusal to replacement) based on the level of the conflict.

5. The APS describes the fellow selection as follows, "The criterion for election is exceptional contributions to the physics enterprise; e.g., outstanding physics research, important applications of physics, leadership in or service to physics, or significant contributions to physics education." The committee will primarily consider and score each candidate in three categories: (i) scholarship, (ii) service to community, and (iii) teaching and mentoring. The committee is also encouraged to consider as secondary contributions: uniqueness of personal trajectory, barriers overcome, and other unique factors of the candidate’s portfolio. There is no difference or preference for fellows from the US compared to non-US. 

6. The scores are compiled by the Chair and shared with all committee members. These scores are used to guide discussions during a video conference meeting of the committee held to rank the nominees. It is to be noted that it is recommended that the Chair does not participate in the ranking process but facilitates the discussions and uses their vote only in case of ties. 

7. Following this meeting, the committee recommends, via an unranked list, the number of fellow candidates that APS has requested from DBIO, in addition to a ranked list of qualified alternatives. The APS Committee on Fellowship will use these alternate candidates to assign any additional slots not used by other units. The lists as well as a Chair’s Report of the procedures followed and COI procedure is then sent by the DBIO Vice-Chair to the APS by August 1.

8. The outgoing DBIO Chair-Elect communicates directly with nominators of specific candidates whose applications the committee felt could be strengthened for next year. It is recommended that this is done only if the nominators reach out to the committee for feedback.

9. Candidates must be a current APS Member (https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships/nominations.cfm). If a candidate’s membership with the APS has lapsed on the membership, they can petition a waiver by directly emailing to the APS honors program.

10. Nominations are good for two years. Past year’s nominations are automatically included in the APS online ranking system for the current year.

The APS can send thank-you letters to the applicants who were not selected before the announcement of the awards. The Committee Chair can request to customize the thank-you letters that encourage the applicants to apply again next year.

Early Career Award

2021 Selection Committee Members: Arpita Upadhyaya (2021, 2022, 2023, chair in 2021)

Raghuveer Parthasarathy (2021, 2022, 2023),  Jennifer Ross (2 years) (2021, 2022), Bill Bialek (2 year) (2021, 2022), Wouter Hoff (1 years) (2021)

2022 Committee:Raghuveer Parthasarathy (2021, 2022, 2023, Chair in 2022), Bill Bialek (2021, 2022), Michael Desai (2022, 2023), Ross Jennifer Ross (2 years) (2021, 2022), Arpita Upadhyaya (2021, 2022), Cheung(Ex officio)

 

This is a unit level award that was created in 2021. It is expected that the Operating procedures will need refinement over the next several years.  As a unit-level award, the Executive Cmte can alter the eligibility and procedures with a simple vote. No other APS approval is required.  This award is not mentioned in the bylaws. It is expected that this will change if/when the award becomes a APS-level award.  A description of the award is found here: 

https://engage.aps.org/dbio/honors/prizes-awards/dbio-early-career-award

 

2021 DBIO chair (Margaret Gardel) selected a full committee that does not include the member from the Executive Committee with staggered terms. She sought feedback from chair line in this process. It is expected that future chairs will re-appoint the members whose terms are staggered, and appoint new members as needed.

 

2022 DBIO Chair (Margaret Cheung) received a note from the APS that this unit level honor selection committee should have a vice chair.  There is also a term limit of two consecutive years. However, several members on this committee has agreed to serve 3 years.  (H4.2 Selection Committee Composition) Each committee should consist of a chair, a vice chair, and members. After serving as vice chair, that individual should become the chair in the next cycle. Members should not serve for more than two consecutive years. Terms should be staggered to prevent the entire committee turning over at once. 

 

2022: The committee met on Wednesday Sept. 7, and had had several email discussions in the months prior about methodology, including scoring rubrics and criteria. Like last year,  the committee emphasized work done during the candidate's independent career, originality of the research, impact on the field of biophysics, and citizenship / activity in the biological physics community. The committee also considered diversity and adversity, noting especially the candidate statements. Also like last year, the committee felt that the award  should be targeted towards faculty who are truly early career, i.e. pre-tenure or five years from start of independent position. All applications were reviewed by each committee member (except in cases of conflict).

The meeting followed the assignment of numerical scores by each committee member based on the following criteria (the same as last year):  Originality of research (1-5), Impact of research (1-5), Citizenship in the scientific community (1-5), Diversity / Adversity (yes/no) (0/1). All scores were shared prior to the meeting, and served as the starting point of discussion.

The following are some suggestions for future committees as well as the APS leadership:

•  This award should be targeted towards faculty who are truly early career, i.e. pre-tenure or five years from start of independent position.

•  The applications should include a section on citizenship and service to the APS/Biological Physics community. This was a criterion for the committee but applicants did not sufficiently highlight their contributions.

•    The committee would like to note that it deeply impressed by all the applicants, and we suggest that in DBIO's communications with those who weren't selected, it be conveyed that they are warmly invited to apply again next year (assuming eligibility).

• The award should be widely advertised to get applications from early career international applicants and broaden the reach of the fellowship and recognition of biological physics research.

•  All applications should be vetted for current memberships at the time of application. This should also be clearly stated in the fellowship application guidelines.

•   We also note that one very strong candidate is at a primarily undergraduate institution, and has nonetheless been able to conduct an impressive research program. We suggest that DBIO may wish to consider a separate award for candidates at primarily undergraduate institutions, or two tracks of this award. (We are aware of the APS undergraduate institution prize, which is APS-wide, and not early-career. 

Note: This is not a unit-wide award, so the APS will not announce our selection with other society-wide awardees in their news release. Therefore, the news of our selection was not embargoed. The Unit Chair can inform the awardee about the selection. The APS can send thank-you letters to the other applicants who were not selected before the announcement of the award. The Committee Chair can request to customize the thank-you letters that encourage the applicants to apply again next year.

Example Letters:

Regret Letter:

 

Dear Dr. XXX (nominator),

 

On behalf of the APS DBIO unit, I regret to inform you that your nominee was not selected for

the 2022 APS DBIO Early Career Award this year.  The awards committee would like to convey that it was deeply impressed by all the applicants, and it would like to encourage applicants to apply again next year if eligible.

 

Sincerely,
Margaret Cheung, DBIO Unit Chair 2022-2023

Raghuveer Parthasarathy, DBIO Chair of the Early Career Award Selection Committee 2022.

 

Congrats Letter: Unit Chair and the Early Career Award Chair sent this letter.

 

Dear Professor XXX

 

On behalf of the APS DBIO unit, I write to congratulate you on receiving the 2022 APS DBIO Early Career Award!

 

This award recognizes outstanding and sustained contributions by an early-career researcher to biological physics. The Division of Biological Physics presents the award annually, consisting of $2,000, a certificate, up to $1000 U.S  travel reimbursement, and a registration waiver to receive the award and give an invited talk at the APS March Meeting in 2023. In its citation, the award committee notes your selection "XXXX."

 

The DBIO would be pleased to recognize your achievement at the APS March Meeting 2023. We hope to see you there!

Congratulations!

Sincerely,
Margaret Cheung, DBIO Unit Chair 2022-2023

Raghuveer Parthasarathy, DBIO Chair of the Early Career Award Selection Committee 2022.

DBIOTravel Awards Committee:

2022 Committee: Ashkar (Chair), Forde, Marzen, Nourmohammad

One Early Career member on this committee.

 

In 2022, the DBIO Execomm has decided to expand the eligibility of the DBIO travel awards to 

Students, postdocs, or early career faculty, as well as the number of the travel awardees per year. DBIO Chair (Cheung) charged the Travel Award Committee Chair (Ashkar) to establish the procedures to select awardees and the form of the applications. Committee Chair has requested the APS to establish a web based application (a word template is here DBIO Travel Award Form_Updated.docx) for applicants in replacement of the submission by emails. 

1. Applicant Qualifications:

1. Applicant can be a graduate or undergraduate student, postdoctoral researcher, or early career faculty. 

2. Applicant  must be the first author of a contributed paper (talk or poster) in a session sponsored by DBIO at the March Meeting. Applications will be evaluated based on merit, with specific attention to applicants with strong financial needs or from underrepresented and historically marginalized groups.

3. Applicant and advisor (with the exception of early career scientists), domestic or foreign, must be members of DBIO, not just of the APS. New members can sign up and are encouraged to do so before Dec. 31 for verification purposes (it is only $8 for APS members to become also DBIO members!).

4. Applicant cannot be a former recipient of the award.

5. Applicants (students or postdocs) must use the online application website to submit an application and request a letter of support from research advisor

2. Committee Responsibilities:

1. Committee will set a deadline for the travel award that aligns with the abstract submission deadline for the annual APS March Meeting. Solicitations will be made by the Sec/Tres with reminders about submitting abstracts.

2. Applications will be shared by the APS point-of-contact with the committee chair and will be distributed to the rest of the committee, with clear instructions for COI and for a deadline for application reviews. 

3. Committee will rank applications by mid-December.

4. The ranked list will be sent to Sec/Tres to check DBIO status of applicant (and advisor).

5. Committee will finalize the list of awardees by early January.

6. Committee chair should send the list of awardees to APS to be published on the award webpage. 

7. Committee chair should contact session chairs before the APS March Meeting to encourage the announcement of these awards while introducing awardees before their talks.

Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Biological Physics: 

2021 Members: Ashkar (Chair), Peleg, Shaevitz, Das

2022 Members: Peleg (Chair), Gopinathan, Marzen, Mugler 

 

The committee Chair consults the previous year's committee committee Chair for information from last year's selection process and the criteria used. 

The committee Chair consults the DBIO by-laws for the list of criteria and shares with the committee members before any review of the applications. Committee also reviews the Unconscious Bias Resources made available by the APS.

The 2022 committee consisted of two early career members, one mid-career member, and one senior member. Following the APS guidelines, the committee Chair abstained from scoring nominations and would have intervened only as a possible tiebreaker, which was not needed. 

In 2022 Unit Chair Margaret Cheung received a note from the APS that the Doctoral Thesis Award Selection Committee should install a vice chair who will serve again a Chair in the following year.

(H4.2 Selection Committee Composition) Each committee should consist of a chair, a vice chair, and members. After serving as vice chair, that individual should become the chair in the next cycle. Members should not serve for more than two consecutive years. Terms should be staggered to prevent the entire committee turning over at once. 

 

Nominations were collected by APS. 

The committee members were all asked to rank the applications before the deliberations meeting which took place on July 21 2022, 1-2pm MT. Committee members were asked to report any conflict of interest before reviewing applications. There were no conflicts declared. All other nominations were evaluated by all committee members (except the committee chair).

 

Based on the ranking, the committee selected the top-ranked nominee. After a discussion, the committee unanimously selected the recipient of the 2023 DBIO Dissertation Award. 

DBIO members were be messaged by e-mail and in the annual business meeting and urged to nominate strong, diverse candidates.

Timeline of Important DBIO Yearly Events

(Person in charge of making sure these things happen and are organized is put in parenthesis)

2022

January & February 

• (DBIO Chair) ExComm meeting to approve Operating Procedures from previous year, resolve any outstanding business. 

• (DBIO Chair) 2 Chairline Meetings

• 1 to discuss any issues that need to be brought up at full ExComm Meeting

• 1 to select Cmte membership for next year.  All but the fellowship committee can be announced at Annual Meeting. 

• (S/T) Solicits and collates reports from all standing and ad hoc committees. 

March, 2022 During and After MM

• Before MM, Margaret G and Orit prepared for the documents and agenda for the executive meeting and business meeting. 

• Membership Drive (Application forms from chairs, whatever it takes!)

• (DBIO Chair): Dinner and Executive Committee Meeting on Monday night

• (DBIO Chair): Annual Business Meeting on Tuesday night

• ~3/13-18, 2022 March Meeting

• At the Executive Committee Meeting, the cmte reviewed the operational procedure and discussed heavily on the topics selection proposed by the Program Committee.

 

• In the same afternoon before the Business meeting started, MG and MC met and created an acceptable policy for focus topics selection for MM23. At the Business Meeting, MG presented it to the members.

 

• MC and MG appointed Jianhua Xing as a one-year MAL to serve on the Program Committee and the Engagement Committee (Chair of the Membership Drive at the MM23).

• MG sent emails to the APS informing them about the members on the honors committees (awards). MG sent emails to members of the Program and Engagement committees letting them know of including Xinghua.

 

• Chair & ExCom select Honors (Fellowship) Committee Members. S-T (Andrew) notifies APS by 3/31.

April, 2022

• Chair arranges an Onboarding Meeting of all new members; Chair arranges a “set the calendar” meeting for all committee chairs and S/T to update this timeline for year. S/T puts all those dates into the calendar. 

• Unit Chair (Cheung) and S&T (Andrew) set up biweekly meeting to go over the budget and unit business.

• 4/25 S-T submits ExCom Meeting Minutes from Annual Meeting

May, 2022

• Mid-may - Josh S. sets two 1 hour meetings of the Fellowship Cmte.

• 5/25 Josh S. reaches out to Margaret about how canvassing for fellowships went and tell her what to do. 

• The APS informed the Unit Chair that Dissertation Committee and other honors selection committees needs a Vice Chair onwards, need to update this in the Operational Procedure

(H4.2 Selection Committee Composition) Each committee should consist of a chair, a vice chair, and members. After serving as vice chair, that individual should become the chair in the next cycle. Members should not serve for more than two consecutive years. Terms should be staggered to prevent the entire committee turning over at once. 

https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/honors-policies.cfm

• Travel Awards were budgeted at $15K

• S&T removed legacy contents on the DBIO engage websites.

• The APS has confirmed the appointee of the Delbruck Prize committee

• Unit Chair Reached out to the Chairs of the selection committees, thank them, and share them the on-boarding materials.

 

June, 2022

• 6/1 Deadline for Focus and Invited Session

• 6/1 Ensure that Tutorial Chair knows about the APS deadline for the Tutorial for 2022 March Meeting

• First week of June - Fellowship cmte members self-identify conflicts; Second week of June - (possible) Fellowship Cmte Meets to come up with a unanimous decision on what to do about conflicts

• In June, Fellowship Cmte meets to decide candidate. Josh writes a report. 

• Late June - Program Cmte meets to decide on Invited and Focus Sessions in time for the APS Sorting Category Deadline

• Completed the fund raising for the Delbruck Prize, fully endowed.

July, 2022

• Nominations Cmte meets to initiate brainstorming of possible candidates. They will plan to meet twice to finalize 

• Tutorial Chair (Ajay) discussed the topics for tutorials.

August, 2022

• Early Career Award 

• Summer Exec Committee meeting: Close the discussion on membership swags, travel award plan, tutorial vs short course. 

• Confirmed that the Delbruck Prize was fully endowed by the APS.

• Selected Twitter APSDBIO handler who serves until MM23.

September, 2022

• Nominations Cmte will make decisions on who is on the ballot not before September 1, 2021

• Unit Chair (an ex officio member) informed the ExeComm  that the two selection committees (Delbruck and the DBIO early career awards) have selected the winners. The names of the awardees are still embargoed by the APS, and not on the purview of the DBIO Execomm for news announcement

• the Travel Award Committee have announced the DBIO Travel Award application to the DBIO membership.

• Community Committee have successfully established a strong following on the monthly DBIO Networking Workshops Webinars.

• Sarah has published Newsletters and Andrew has curated the DBIO websites for news archives

• the new DBIO twitter handler was selected.

• Program and Co-organizers have handled the programs MM23. and Tutorial/Short course sessions 

• APS will create a new DBIO logo soon, and that will be on the giveaways and banners in late winter.

• Forwarded the names of the APS DBIO fellows and dissertation awardees to the Program Committee

• Coordinate the Twitter between Program Comm and Communication Committee to drive MM registration

Emails set to the Focus Session Organizers.

 

Hi all,

 

APS DBIO offers each focus session the opportunity to self-promote by providing up to 5 Tweets (up to 280 characters each) + an accompanying figure for a “Tweetorial” on our Twitter channel.  Suggestions on how to make an effective posting are below. 

If you wish to do this, then in collaboration with your other focus session organizers, please finalize the content of the Tweets & figure that you wish to use, and send it to our DBIO Twitter master, XXXX for posting.

The sooner you get this to him, the better: both because your Tweet will stand out from others in the DBIO stream because it will get posted sooner, and also because it then has more time to influence our followers to submit an abstract for your session.  All Tweets must be received by Friday October 14.

Feel free also to self-promote your session via a post on the APS Engage platform.

 

Thanks for helping us to promote the exciting scientific program that DBIO will be sponsoring at the APS March Meeting. We hope your session will be a great success and are looking forward to seeing you in Las Vegas.

 

Best wishes,

Nancy Forde

Chair, APS DBIO Community Engagement Committee

October, 2022

• 10/31 Nominations Cmte solicit bios and statements, check eligibility with the APS, and tell S&T who is on the ballot; S&T set up for elections.

• Charlines met to discuss. (1) yes to NIH program officers to have a Town Hall meeting.

(2) Write a blanket regret letter instead of targeting individual applications. The outgoing Fellowship Chair can communicate the metrics when needed.

November, 2022

• S&T held elections

• Nomination Chair informed the election decisions and thanked the candidates.

• Unit Chair reached out to committee chairs for updating the Ops for 2022-2023, with the due date of Dec 20th, 2022, 

• Summarizing the yearly DBIO achievement. DBIO will host a Town Hall meeting on “NIH funding opportunities”.The panelists will be three program directors from the NIGMS (confirmed attendance). 

• (Ad Hoc committee Chair) Dan Goldman has led a one-person special ad hoc DBIO committee to lobby PoLS into the US News Rankings, and he succeeded.

• DBIO received new DBIO logo.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1eIFKVMayOTWIgWj7Rl75nX7Z4W6PU03B?usp=share_link

December, 2023

• DBIO Chair reviewed the Ops for 2022-2023

• (DBIO Chair) DBIO will collaborate with Physical Review about the launch of PRX Life at the APS MM23.

• Unit Chair arranges ExeCom Meeting/Dinner, Business Meeting, and Town Hall Meeting at the AP MM.

• DBIO Chair emailed the incoming Execomm Members, and sent them current OPS and by-laws, and invited them to the Exec Meeting/Dinner at the MM23.

• DBIO Chair asked the Execom to review the Ops (this document), probe the committee assignment using a google form, and scheduled a when2meet for the Spring Execom meeting in early February.

https://forms.gle/gME8Vb2kQ6V9fjcJ9

January, 2023

• (DBIO Chair) Chair lines communicated committee assignments and pending issues on the Ops

• (S&T) Reserve a conference room for the Executive Meeting from the APS (Monday). Order food and drinks for the Business Meeting from the APS (Tuesday).

 

February 2023

• (DBIO Chair) Synchronous Spring Executive Committee meeting to discuss and approve the Operational Procedure for the next cycle starting after the MM23 with a simple vote.

• The Executive Committee has agreed to install vice chairs to the selected ad hoc committees including Community Engagement, Membership, and Travel Awards Selection. The vice chair will become chair in the next cycle. This will establish a staggered leadership in these important ad hoc committees and sustain the institutional memories of know-hows.

• (Membershp Chair) Circulate the sign-up google sheet for driving membership at the Table.

• (DBIO Chair) Unit Chair will delegate the APS’ request of volunteers’ information for badge scanning to the Membership Engagement Chair. 

• (DBIO Chair) Communicate committee assignments with ExeComms and incoming ExeComm members.

• (S&T) Reserved the restaurant for the Execom and incoming Excom members before the Execomm meeting on Monday because it is much cheaper this way. 

• (S&T) Request the APS to print out certificates for unit level awards such as travel and early career awards.

March 2023 Preps Before MM

• (Membership Cmte Chair) Finalize the logistics of membership drive for the MM23, making sure that the APS has the emails of the volunteers for badge scanning before MM.

• (Engagement Cmte Chair) Finalize twitter feeds and prepare QR codes for feedback.

• (DBIO Chair) Finalize the unfinished operational procedures.

• (DBIO Chair) Collect reports and slides from Committee Chairs

• (DBIO Chair) Set Agenda for the Executive Comm Meetings and Business Meetings during the week of the MM.

• (DBIO Chair) Prepare gifts to outgoing ExeComm Members.

• (DBIO Chair) Inform the DBIO volunteers to join the Business Meeting. Their names will be included on the Chair’s report (shout-out).

• (DBIO Chair) Finalized the hybrid logistics of the Business meeting and the Town Hall events (DBIO paid for the access of zoom links from the APS for these two events).

• (S&T) Pick up fellowship pins and certificates as well as the certificates for unit-level awards such as travel and early career awards.

MM: 

The new term starts at the end of the March Meeting. The outgoing Unit chair emailed committee members and cc the incoming chair and prepared knowledge transfer.

Useful Information for 2022-2023

 

Send Emails Out/Get Information/Update Webpage

https://apsphysics.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/14

Example Emails to incoming Execom members:

 

To incoming Execom members .

 

Dear all,

 

Happy New Year!

On behalf of the DBIO Executive Committee, I welcome you to be on board. Your term will begin at the end of the March Meeting, 2023.

 

As an incoming member on the Executive Committee, you are invited to the DBIO Executive Dinner and Meeting on Monday (March 6th) in Las Vegas. I will send you information about the location and time once I confirm the reservations. A hybrid meeting with a virtual component would be possible upon request.

 

Please take the time to be familiar with the DBIO by-laws about your duties

https://engage.aps.org/dbio/governance/bylaws

and the Operational Procedure (2021-2022)

https://engage.aps.org/dbio/resources/operating-procedures.

 

The executive committee members will review and approve the latest Operational Procedure (2022-23) in a few weeks. Once approved by the Executive Committee at the MM 23, it will be posted online by Andrew, Mugler the Secretary and Treasury of the DBIO. (cced)

 

The names of the current DBIO Executive Committee members and their terms on posted on the Engage page:

https://engage.aps.org/dbio/governance/executive-committee/committee-members?Execute=1

 

The time commitment of an Execom member varies. Chairlines typically spent 8 hours per month, and member_at_larges typically spent 2 hours per month, depending on the assignment. As an out-going unit chair,  I will be drafting the committee assignments for the next cycle in January. I will circulate them with you and the Executive Committee in February for feedback, before the March Meeting. After the March Meeting, the incoming Unit Chair (XXX) will be providing on-boarding training.

If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to let me know. My c-phone number is XXXXX. And I’d be happy to chat with you under a short notice if there is something you’d like to know.

Thank you again!

Sincerely,

XXXX

Chair (2022-2023), DBIO/APS