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 and shall 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
• 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 - Virtual, to “Onboard” new committee members
• July/August - needed if there are any unit processes
• January/February - (2 meetings) Virtual, to review processes of the past year, approve Operating Procedures

Recordkeeping and Transparency

1. 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.
2. The S/T should record (and make available as needed) list of all candidates who ran for election (not just the winners).
3. 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 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).

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

This is an ad hoc unit activity (not in bylaws). The current DBIO Chair is in charge of canvassing activities, obtains help from Executive Cmte and other members as needed. In 2021, 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 Chair 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 spring 2021.   
• 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 either Honors and reached out to individuals who could serve as nominators for strong candidates - these were senior colleagues who had previously served as mentors or collaborators.  In 2020-21,  5-10 individuals were identified to put together nomination packets for fellows.
• Canvassing for Delbruck may require a multi-year plan and improvements should be made. Activities done in 2021, several potential nominators were contacted.  
• Canvassing should be done 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 spreadsheets can be passed on directly to the next DBIO Chair. Given the sensitive nature of canvassing, this information should be kept confidential.

Delbruck Prize Committee

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.

* Regardless of whether they are serving, last year's committee Chair supplies to the new committee the list of candidates that will carry over. The new committee should begin early to think about strong candidates not on this list, especially considering diversity. The Canvassing Chair (DBIO Chair) will solicit nominations for those persons to help ensure a strong pool. Candidates are not restricted to be DBIO members, nor even to be APS members. [phil check with aps]

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

* Committee Chair decides procedure to be used in 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.

* 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.

* 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 can award the prize to one or two scientists in the same year, but only one field.

* DBIO Chair attends meetings 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 and report to Excomm. The decision is not to be shared with anyone else, including awardee, until DBIO approval. It is easy to forget this, so the committee chair firmly instructs the committee. DBIO Chair approves, committee chair then submits decision to APS, then wait for APS approval.

Community Engagement Committee

Nothing to report.

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

   The By-law does not identify the size of the program committee. Therefore, a few non-ExeCom members (Omar Saleh, Taras Pogorelov, Serena Bradde) were added to stand in for the MALs who declined to serve on the 2021 program committee. It has been very beneficial to have non-ExeCom members who provided diverse vantage points on scientific programs, which in turn forged strong connections to the societal Physical Review journals. A few biophysics Physical Review editors volunteered to serve on the DBIO Program Committees for future MMs.
   

2. Topics Solicitation by Opting in APS’ “Invited Nomination System”
   
   The APS MM logistics team provided the quota of Invited Sessions for each unit for MM22. The APS MM estimated the number of the focus sessions for each unit based on the size of participation over the past 5 years. The APS didn’t impose a hard cap on the number of focus sessions. The number of focus sessions will depend on 

   Right after the MM, the APS MM Logistics team held a zoom meeting for all Unit Program Chairs. They strongly recommended that the unit program chairs coordinated the logistics with the APS regarding the timelines for soliciting topics and for selecting invited speakers. For MM21, several large units have opted in the APS’ nomination system ( DQI, DCMP, DCP, DAMOP, DCOMP, DQI, FIP, GMAG, GSNP, and GDS.).

   In the past, the DBIO Program Committee had its own timeline by coordinating the logistics with other unit program chairs (DSOFT/DPOLY). We solicited topics from our own unit memberships.  We more or less consolidated the focus topics and actively co-sponsored the related focus topics from each other. 

   The DBIO program committee set several criteria for selecting topics for the Invited sessions. The Program Committee finalized the selections of topics (with the selection of invited speakers) for both the invited and focus sessions by the end of May.  

   What’s New in MM2022? We Opted in the APS’ “Invited Nomination Systems” in early May. The APS logistics team has provided a table of roll-out deadlines for soliciting topics of Focus and Invited sessions, the nomination of invited speakers, and the selection of the invited speakers over several months until mid-summer. These roll-out deadlines alleviate the stress to complete the selection of topics and invited speakers on the same deadline by allowing broader participation of unit members to organically form focus topics first and then nominate invited speakers a few weeks later. 

   We also invited the focus session organizers to be part of the program committee. The heavy workload of abstract sorting was shared by 60+ members.  Co-organizers have more autonomy in building their sessions and “Power to the Players”.

   The Program Chair was able to spend more time on strategic planning and coordinating. The solicitation of Focus topics is more about sciences and less about the invited speakers. 

   The APS Chair’s handbook has clear instructions about how to select topics for the Focus and the Invited Sessions using the Nomination System. The decision should not be arbitrarily done by the Program Committee.  We basically accept as many as the Focus Sessions that are reasonable. The number of the invited Sessions, however, is determined by the APS according to the attendance of the previous MM. For MM22, we have enlisted all focus session organizers as sorters who participated in the Phase 1 sorting. It will be helpful if we can identify “Lead Sorters” early in this process. Lead Sorters can encourage other sorters to tweak the topics of the Focus and Invited Sessions. From Margaret C’ experience, not all sorters were open to collaboration at this stage. A few, however, welcomed it to save their time and effort by joining with other sorters.

3. Timeline of Activities
   
   

   After March Meeting 2021: The Program Chair created the google excel sheet and shared it with the program committee about the timeline of activities. 

   Apr 28th: Virtual APS Program Meeting and received the MM 22 handbook (link)

   May 1st:  Opted in the Invited Nomination Systems for the first time 

   May 2nd: Emailed DPOLY/DSOFT/DFD/GNSP program chairs to coordinate on topics that is necessary (we don’t want to do that excessively as it negatively impacts the room assignment)

   May 6th: First Program Committee Meeting:

   (1) Announced deadlines (2) Pruned sorting categories by using last years' focus session stats (3) Created three google forms  (see 4. Soliciting Sessions) (4) Schedule another zoom meeting on June 2 or 3 to discuss the focus topics and submit the list to APS by June 4 (5) Josh took over logistics for Tutorials (6) No more waived fee for invited senior speakers (6) Invited newly elected APS Fellows as invited speakers in focus sessions where topics are relevant.

   May 30th: Deadlines for soliciting topics from DBIO members. 

   Jun 2nd:  At the 2nd Program Committee Meeting (DBIO MM), we finalized the selections of topics for the Focus and the Invited sessions, without an active attempt to consolidate topics from three google forms. We also kept the topics of categories in standard sessions quite broad to capture the abstracts that won’t fit into specific Focus topics.

   Jun 3th: Program Chair emailed organizers whose invited sessions were not selected and offered them the opportunity to turn invited sessions into focus sessions. Emailed focus session organizers (returning and new topics). Emailed other unit sessions for cross-listing.

   Jun 4th: Program Chair submitted the list of topics (focus, invited, and standard) on a google sheet to the APS. Each accepted focus topic can grow into multiple sessions when the topics are oversubscribed. Each session (of focus topics) has 1 slot for the invited speaker. If the number of the sessions (of focus topics) grows by N, then the number of the invited speakers grows by N. However, because there is no way to know in advance whether the focus topics will be overscribed or not, we can nominate several invited speakers and assign some of them as “alternative” invited speakers.

   Jul 6th: APS opened the website for the individual nomination of invited speakers.

   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.

   Aug 9th: APS MM abstract submission open. The Program Chair placed the selected invited speakers (in planstone) from the nominated invited speakers (on a google sheet)

   Aug 13th: APS closed the website for the individual nomination of invited speakers. The nominated invited speakers do not have to commit to come to the MM. If they do, great. If not, other nominated invited speakers can be alternatives. Next, selection of the invited speakers begin. Program Chair reviewed the topics/demography of the invited speakers and nominated 4 more invited speakers from under-presented groups.

    Sep 17th: Soft deadlines for the Program Chair to enter the selected invited speakers to planstone.

    Sep 28th: At the MM Program Chair Meeting we placed the invited sessions on the grids of the program. The APS rotated the Friday grids among units. DBIO received one for MM22. 

   Oct 1st: The DBIO launched the “Tweetorial” allowing the focus session organizers to advertise their Focus Sessions in 5-10 tweets.

   Oct 12th: The program chair sent the APS a list of names from 60 sorters and assigned 8 as lead sorters. All sorters participated in Phase 1. Only Lead sorters were needed for Phase 2.

   Oct 20th: The APS has announced Award winners. So the Program Chair has started to put together the last Symposium with the Delbruck winner (Terry Hwa). Also invited the new APS DBIO Fellows as invited speakers (only if they did not give an invited talk in MM21).

   Oct 20th: APS emailed invited speakers with formal invitations.

   Oct 27th: MM oral and poster abstracts submission closed. Each member can have one oral and one poster submission. The oral presentation will be “contributed talks”

   Nov 3rd: The APS has solicited names for several travel/lectureship awards for the MM. The Program Chair nominated Prof Roselin Allen for the Beller lectureship and she won. The Program nominatedPror. Saraswathi Vishveshwara from India for the Marshak Lectureship but she didn’t win.

   Nov 3rd: Sorting Phase 1. All sorters. We received training from the APS. Remind the sorters not to send DBIO abstracts to other units without consulting with the Program Chair. The total number of abstracts in the program will determine conference room allocations. 

   (1) Please review the 12-minute tutorial video first. (This is really helpful). 

   Video Demonstration: https://apsphysics.zoom.us/rec/share/5SP_jOUzjgP67q7KiD6is_3CU_j5-66tzZRGP6jLORvWFCB8LTe9yPLY1rN_mn4.LkVEaDFXmBQfERhQ?startTime=1637244634000"                        

   (2) Please check if the abstracts from your invited speakers are indeed on the google sheet. If not, please reach out to me ASAP by email and I will get the APS to resend the links to the invited speakers. We need to have them in the database before the Phase 2 sorters' meeting by Dec 2nd.                        

   (3) If you plan to promote a contributed talk to an invited one on the google sheet, please (1) highlight that row in yellow and (2) send me an email for this change because the APS needs to manually change the setting in the system.                        

   (4) If your session is oversubscribed (you have more abstracts to fit into one session), please create a second session by labeling the abbreviations with roman numerals (eg. COVID I, COVID II, etc)                        

   (5) A typical session is 1 invited talk and 12 contributed talks. Incomplete sessions will be later consolidated in Phase 2 by lead sorters.

   (6) Update: Please don't use the Exchange Bin to swap abstracts in Phase 1. They can disappear without a trace quickly....                        

   (7) Select a session chair who can physically be in the room to manually switch talks delivered in person or virtual.                        

   (8) Place international speakers last in the presentation order, in case some of them cannot come to the US due to covid restrictions.                        

   (9) You can pull oral abstracts relating to your own Focus Topics from the Standard Categories (from 04.03.00 to 04.12.00) to fill your Session. In Phase 1 you are welcome to collaborate with other designated Focus Session sorters (within the DBIO) for consolidating the sessions with related topics. Please not pull abstracts from other Focus Sessions without reaching out to their sorters first at this stage.          

   04.03.00 Microbiological Physics (bacteria, viruses, fungi)                        

   04.04.00 Cellular Biophysics (structure, mechanics, dynamics)                        

   04.05.00 Physics of Cancer                        

   04.06.00 Single-Molecule Techniques                        

   04.07.00 Membranes and channels                        

   04.08.00 Noise and Stochasticity in Biology                        

   04.09.00 Biopolymers (DNA, RNA, biocompatible, gels)                        

   04.10.00 Nanoscale biophysics                        

   04.11.00 Proteins (globular, enzymes, structured, unstructured)                        

   04.12.00 Biological Networks                        

   (10) You can slightly modify the full title of your Focus Session if you wish, especially for those consolidated ones.                        

   (11) If a DBIO abstract has a molecular component and do not fit your session, please sort them into other related FOCUS sessions that have the molecular components within DBIO as the first option. Or ping Margaret Cheung. (Please move our abstracts within the Focus Session primarily sponsored by theDBIO unit as best as you can, so we don't lose the total count of the DBIO abstracts)                        

   (12)  If there is a request for abstracts by a sorter from another Unit, please ping Margaret Cheung before you reply. I will work with the Program Chair from the other Unit and make sure that the DBIO's co-sponsorship is accounted for.  Typically these agreements to share abstracts among cosponsoring Focus Sessions were achieved by Unit Program Chairs. Thank you.                        

   Dec 3rd: Sorting Phase 2 involves only lead sorters. 8 Lead sorters compacted the program by combining uneven focus sessions (1 invited talk + 12 short talks), or turning them into contributed sessions (15 short talks).

   Because the DBIO was oversubscribed and may be in danger of running out of conference rooms, we were advised to compress 80+ sessions down to 70+ in order to use all of the allotted space.  During this time, the Program Chair emailed the APS MM logistics director (Donna Greene), Meeting director  (Hunter Clemson), as well as DBIO counsilor Daniel Fisher to resolve the problem with an oversubscribed program. At the end, the APS Logistics team gave us 5 concurrent conference rooms without having to share with other units.

   This process of consolidating sessions and moving the sorted order of presentations from google sheet to planestone lasted a few weeks until the end of December.
   
   

   Jan - Feb 2022: 

   1. The Program Chair has been communicating with stakeholders about error corrections on the bulletin and identifying session chairs who can be physically at the meeting.
   2. Program Committee members worked with the DBIO Unit Chair, the membership committee, and the community engagement committee for setting up tables and on-line networking events.
   3. Start updating this file – you’ll need to prepare your report for the business meeting!

    
   Mar 2022: 

   1. The APS will train Session Chairs.
   2. Present summary at Tuesday business meeting
   3.  Check on DBIO Sessions on the bulletin.
   4.  Send surveys to session chairs and organizers and ask them about the session: Room Size, Attendance, What worked? What didn’t? 

    
   The Program Chair has declined several requests of waiving registration fees for the invited speakers. A few organizers have managed to raise funding for their invited speakers. The APS Logistics team was able to help with connecting them to the APS Registration team.

   The DBIO followed the Planning Schedule Provided by the APS in the Program Chair’s handbook. The Schedule is below. The Program Chair MUST READ the hand-book.

   https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A6dM3R9pppTGQuvFAWrbluV3J6MMuPBx6l2o4ZsQkh4/edit?usp=sharing

   Program Committee Planning Schedule/Scientific Program Deadlines
   
   

   2021
   Deadlines	Action Items
   Wednesday, April 21	APS sends Program Handbook to the Program Committee
   Thursday, April 29	Solicit unit input whether they will be using the Invited Nomination System
   Thursday, May 6	Deadline to request use of the APS Invited Nomination System
   Friday, May 7	Ask units for sorting categories
   Tuesday, June 1	Remind units that sorting categories are due soon
   Friday, June 4	Final Sorting Categories including the Focus Topics and the Standard Topics from units due to Terrance Morrison (apsmtgs-march@aps.org)
   Friday, June 4	APS sends reminder to unit officers and chairs to produce membership message notifying that nominations of invited speakers open soon
   Thursday, July 6	Symposium/Speaker (selections) nominations opens in Abstract System (It means that the solicitation of Focus topics is more about sciences and less about the speakers.
   Wednesday, July 7	Ask unit chairs to submit tutorial information to Kieran Mullen (kieran@ou.edu)
   Thursday, July 22	Focus session descriptions due to Terrance Morrison  (apsmtgs-march@aps.org)
   Thursday, July 22	Deadline to submit proposals for tutorials to Tutorial Chair, Kieran Mullen (kieran@ou.edu)
   Tuesday, August 3	Abstract System opens up for March Meeting Program Committee to enter invited speaker and invited symposium selections
   Monday, August 9	First March Meeting announcement and call for abstracts published on the Meetings website
   Friday, August 13	Deadline for invited nominations of SPEAKERS through the Abstract System
   Friday, August 20	Final information on tutorials due from Kieran Mullen to Ebony Adams (adams@aps.org) and Vinaya Sathyasheelappa (vinaya@aps.org)
   Friday, August 20	Deadline to submit Unit Short Course due to Vinaya Sathyasheelappa (vinaya@aps.org)
   Friday, August 27	APS releases preliminary symposia grid
   Friday, September 17	Deadline for program chairs to enter all invited speaker and symposium information into ScholarOne

   Tuesday, September 28	March Meeting Program Committee meets to discuss symposia grid, via videoconference (11:00a.m. EST)
   Wednesday, September 29	Terrance Morrison contacts Program Committee for sorter’s contact information
   Tuesday, October 5	Deadline to edit invited speaker information
   Wednesday, October 6	Invitation letters sent to all invited speakers
   Tuesday, October 12	Sorters Contact information for online sorting due to Terrance Morrison (apsmtgs-march@aps.org)
   Friday, October 22	Abstract deadline-official deadline for Contributed and Invited abstracts and Deadline for Invited Speakers to RSVP via the web ink provided in their invitations
   Wednesday-Thursday,  November 3 & 4  Friday, November 19  Wednesday, December 1  Thursday-Friday, December 2 & December 3	Sorters Meeting Phase I  Abstract Sorting begins with online training (Q&A)  Online sorting ends  March Meeting 2022 Registration Opens  Sorters Meeting Phase II (Program Chairs & Team Leaders only) • Assignment of orphans to sessions  • Assign dates/times to sorted sessions
   Friday, December 3	Sorters & Program Committee begin contacting session Chairs
   Wednesday, December 8	Scientific Program posted online for Committee Review
   Friday, December 17	Confirmed Session Chairs due to APS
   Friday, December 17	All program edits due from Program Committee to Terrance Morrison (apsmtgs-march@aps.org)
   Tuesday, December 21	Author notices sent
   Wednesday, December 22	Chair notices sent
   2022
   Deadlines	Action Items
   Tuesday, January 4	Early Registration deadline
   Friday, January 7	Last Day for all author-requested changes other than withdrawals
   Friday, January 14	Lunch with the Experts  experts and topics due to Ebony Adams (adams@aps.org)
   Friday, February 4	Late Registration deadline (On-site fees after this date)

   
   

4. Soliciting Sessions
   
   We use Google Forms that people type in and submit for new and pre-identified FOCUS or INVITED sessions. The benefit of Google forms is that the spreadsheets can be created automatically.

   Update and copy Google forms from last year into your own personal google account. In this way the form will be linked to you, and hence anyone who attempts to hit “reply” will generate an email to you and not to your predecessor. Copy the old forms into the new ones. (You may first need to get permission from whomever owns the old versions.) Then revise to update all dates, names, e-mails that they contain.

   We also post online Google documents that submitters can download, edit offline till they get it the way they want it, then copy and paste into the Google Forms. Scan through these two documents and update all dates, names, e-mails that they contain. If you made other changes in the Google Forms, update these documents to be consistent.

   Proposers should know there are no guaranteed registration fee waivers/reimbursements for invited speakers. After the deadline, contact all session proposers who made the deadline (up to you whether to give a grace period), and thank them (i.e. acknowledge submission). Communicate an expected time to decide.

   MC suggested removing the wording about weighing the commitment of invited speakers as one of the criteria for accepting the Focus or Invited topics. Using this criteria disproportionately discouraged invited speakers with limited means. The “Nomination System” from the APS, the willingness of a particular invited speaker is not a problem at all, as we can nominate as many invited speakers as alternatives, whether confirmed or not. It is the “Topics” that drives the program.

   MC also advises that the google sheet for the Focus sessions provides the name of  1 nominated invited speaker and several others as alternatives. The speakers do not have to commit to join the MM at this point.

   MC also suggested adding a tab on the google sheet asking whether the organizers would like to assist with sorting, or to serve as “Lead Sorters”.  While we encourage early career members to submit topics for Focus Sessions, MC strongly recommended the Lead Sorters should be established scientists whose reputation will not be easily injured if they were forced to make hard decisions on consolidating sessions, room assignment, invited speakers selections, etc.

   E-mail sent to DBIO members in mid-May to solicit Session (send via Engage):

   --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   The Division of Biological Physics needs your ideas and efforts to build our program for the 2022 March Meeting!
   
   We have several ways for you to help: 

   1. Submit a proposal for an Invited Session confirmation from invited speakers are not needed for the nomination system. This language should be removed for MM23)
   2. Submit a proposal for a Focus Session
   3. Volunteer to be co-organizer for a pre-identified Focus Session 

   
   Based on their success last year, we have identified 13 areas that we’d like to have Focus Sessions on: Evolutionary & Ecological Dynamics, Immune Sensing & Response, Macromolecular Phase Separation, Mechanics of Cells and Tissues, Biological Active Matter, Cytoskeleton, Proteins, Animal Behavior and Social Interactions, Robophysics, Genome Organization, Biomaterials, Biofilms, and Neural Systems.
   
   If you are interested in organizing and defining a Focus Session in any of these areas, please use this expedited form.
   
   If you wish to propose a new session (invited or focus), click the appropriate link above to be taken to the appropriate submission form.
   
   Submissions are due by May 30, 2021. (this should be May 23rd 2022)
   
   Email mscheung@uw.edu with questions/comments.
   
   Thank you for supporting DBIO and contributing to the success of the APS
   March Meeting!

   Sincerely,
   Margaret Cheung
   Chair-Elect, DBIO Unit.

   Below, please find the members of the APS DBIO Program Committee 2022. I thank them for their time serving on this committee. I look forward to an exciting MM program in 2022:
   
   Margaret S Cheung (Chair, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Review of Modern Physics, U of Washington, U of Houston, Center for Theoretical Biological Physics,)
   Serena Bradde(Physical Review E)
   MOUMITA DAS(Rochester Institute of Technology)
   Nancy Forde(Simon Fraser Univ)
   Margaret Gardel(Univ of Chicago)
   Taras Pogorelov (UIUC)
   Omar A. Saleh(UCSB)
   Joshua W Shaevitz(Princeton)

5. Choosing Focus and Invited Sessions
   
   The APS has established best practices, rules and policies to select Focus and Invited Sessions. Please see the Handbook. The program committee can establish our own rubrics for selecting the Topics for the Invited Sessions.  The declined Invited proposals could become Focus Sessions (this is important). Since we used the “Nomination System” from the APS, we can nominate speakers for the Focus or the Invited Sessions in August. There is no need to rush to confirm the invited speakers in June. We should first manage the topics for the “Sorting Categories”(Focus and Standard Sessions) and “Invited Sessions”.

    FOCUS SESSION SELECTION

   1) We typically accept all reasonable FOCUS sessions. There is no limit on FOCUS sessions, though each must ultimately have enough abstracts to justify a session. 

   2) Check with DPOLY, GSOFT, and GSNP about potential overlaps in FOCUS sessions. This is important but we don’t have to cosponsor repetitive topics across units.

   3) FOCUS sessions that are very close should be informed at this point and check if they would like to combine with others. Most declined the suggestions. It is OK at this point because the undersubscribed sessions will be combined with others at Phase 2 of the sorting.

   4) Identify obvious gaps in Focus Sessions; Solicit organizers to fill those gaps. This is important.

   5) Tell FOCUS proposers you’ve selected them so they should get to work spreading the word (technically the session is contingent on getting enough contributed abstracts).

   6) The number of FOCUS Sessions did not have to be the same as the past year. The APS MM logistic team will decide on the room assignment for next year’s APS MM according to the past 5 years of data. If DBIO is growing, let it be.

    
   INVITED SESSION SELECTION 

   1) Remember that you need to reserve one INVITED session for the Delbruck Prize session for the Debruck prize winner. if it is being awarded. The problem is the winner is being selected and cannot be notified until the Council approves in September. So, you have to leave it hanging for a long time - after the deadline for invited speakers. That is OK. The winner is asked who should talk at their session. (S)he and the program committee Chair organize the session. Again, the prize winner’s talk is deemed “nontechnical.”
   
   2) The APS MM Chairperson’s Handbook also provides a few excellent rules of thumb. If some Focus Sessions from last year were popular (by having several of them), then such topics should be represented by the invited sessions. Since DBIO has 4-5 major subfields (molecular, subcellular, cellular, population, neural biophysics), it will make sense that each of these subfields will equitably get an invited session.
   
   3) You will have more INVITED proposals than your quota. But each FOCUS session can ONLY have 1 invited talk. So you can make an unsuccessful INVITED proposer happy if you create a corresponding FOCUS and get at least some of the proposed invited talks as invited talks in the FOCUS session(s). Although you have not yet accepted or rejected any INVITED sessions, think about this possibility. Try to ensure that INVITED proposals you think won’t get selected have corresponding FOCUS session sorting categories for reconfiguration.
   
   4) Confer with DPOLY, GSOFT, GSNP about invited sessions you have selected. Check for overlap. See if some topics could be co-sponsored. Sharing sponsorship may allow DBIO to have higher impact, but it may be that the Division wants to get more invited sessions that they lead. If they approach you about co-sponsoring a session, see if there is a session of ours they could co-sponsor. An INVITED session cosponsored by N units costs each of them 1/N against its quota. Double-check that this is still the case. Of course it adds another level of complexity since you want to saturate your bound, and now your cost won’t necessarily be an integer. MC in general did not favor co-sponsoring Focus or Invited Sessions because it complicated room assignment.
   
   

   Invited Talks for New APS Fellows and Thesis Prize Winners: 

   Thesis prize winner(s) and New APS Fellows are invited to give INVITED talks in FOCUS or INVITED Sessions. Typically, it is easiest for it to be a FOCUS session. Find the chair of the Thesis prize and ask who the winner(s) will be.  The APS did not consider these talks as Prized talks. So if the fellow has given an invited talk last year, she/he will not be eligible for another talk
   

6. Program Chair is also Chief of Communication Officer
   
   It is important for the Program Chair to keep track of open communications among the DBIO Program Committee, DBIO ExComm, the APS Logistics Team, and the focus session coorganizers. The APS logistics team sent emails only to the Unit Program Chair to coordinate the deadlines. It is the Program Chair who held the responsibility to deliver the scientific program for their unit at the MM (not the APS logistic team). MC shared the timelines and created FAQ google sheets with stakeholders.
   
   

   Notes on invited speaker selections:

   1. 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.
   2.  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.
   3.  If session organizers report any cancellations, we can just select another invited speakers from the list of “alternatives” in the “Nomination System”.
        

   Notes on Financial Incentives for Invited Speakers:

   The APS DBIO did not offer financial incentives for the invited speakers in MM22.  

   DBIO will realign the travel fund for a wider group of members for MM23. MC nominated two invited speakers for the APS lectureship in early December. Roselind Allen received an APS Beller Lectureship..

   Notes on Sorting Categories

   Contact APS and request a listing of the previous year’s sorting categories with stats about how many abstracts each succeeded in attracting. There are the FOCUS sorting categories, followed by the regular DBIO sorting categories. In the FOCUS sessions, each may have several sponsors listed, but the primary “owner” is the first sponsor listed, so separate out the ones whose first sponsor is DBIO.

   Update the sorting categories (both Regular sorting categories, and sorting categories specifically dedicated to FOCUS sessions). Your goal is to (a) discard moribund regular sorting categories; (b) add new regular sorting categories; (c) create a list of FOCUS sorting categories; (d) contact fellow program chairs asking them to cosponsor FOCUS sessions; (e) reply to similar requests from them. I chose not to assign any numbers to sorting categories because APS may renumber them anyway and that would be very confusing. Annotate all those that other units agreed to cosponsor.

   MC trimmed down the sorting categories for 2022MM. APS shared the statistics on each category from the last MM. MC removed co-sponsored focus sessions with low attendance. Also, always order the focus sessions primarily sponsored by the DBIO first and those co-sponsored sessions last on the category.

   Notes on Co-sponsoring with Other Units

   It is common to cosponsor FOCUS sessions with other units: DSOFT, DFD, DCOMP, DMP, DCMP, DPOLY, GSNP, DFED.  If an invited session is co-sponsored it ends up counting only 0.5 towards our quota. Because the abstract numbers affect the assignment of conference rooms, most Units were very cautious about co-sponsoring. 

   The “costs” are: (1) abstracts submitted to a cosponsored session may get the credit divided among the cosponsoring units; check with APS if this concerns you), (2) some extra headaches at sorting if other units claim a DBIO-led Sorting Category and move talks around. (3) room assignment. In MM22 we received a block of conference rooms for 5 or 6 concurrent sessions without sharing with other units. This brought more flexibility in assigning the scheduling Grid.
   

7. Submitting Selection of Invited speakers into Planstone (MM22)
   
   (1) Enter invited sessions and speaker info to Planstone. APS provided tutorials to access Planstone.
   
   

   (2) Invited speakers for FOCUS Sessions will be entered as Invited Speaker Selections. You may choose to ask the FOCUS Session organizers to enter their invited speakers, to distribute the workload a bit more. Many people will already be in the system, and you will just select them after a simple search. In this case, some of their vital information will already be in ScholarOne from the initial export from our system, and you will not need to enter any additional information. For the ones that are not already included, then you will need to add a new person. To do this, you will need a name, email address, and affiliation. You will not need fax, phone, or anything else.

   (3) Invited symposium speakers will be entered as part of the Invited Symposium Selections. Either you can enter these, or you can enlist the help of other DBIO folks to enter them. You need: Speaker name. Speaker email. Speaker affiliation. Talk title. And session chair. This is when you realize that various of these data are missing on the proposals you approved, so get on the organizers early (of course everyone is on vacation in     August). There is also a required field called “Justification.” It’s irrelevant, so just enter an x.

   (4) If there are date restrictions on an INVITED session, and there always will be some, enter them in the special info box for that session. Hopefully, you have kept a log of these as you became aware of them over the last several months.

8. Sorting Sessions & Room Scheduling
   
   

   In 2021, MC had 65 members from the co-organizers of the focus sessions for sorting in Phase 1 and 8 members as Lead Sorters in Phase 2. It worked well for sorting over 900 oral abstracts on google-sheets.

   1) APS runs training sessions for sorting on zoom.  Make sure to attend these.

   2) Your sorters can only see and touch abstracts in their assigned sorting categories. After they “session” an abstract (create a session and put abstracts there), then you’ll be able to see it inside that session (if your sorter has correctly chosen DBIO as its “topic”). If they think something is inappropriately classified, they can hand it off to another category. The training explains how. This is a reason to not get granular on sorting assignments.

   3) You can see every unassigned talk that has a DBIO sorting category. But other units will dump an abstract they don’t want into the Exchange Bin, with a comment proposing what unit they think should pick it up. This can be very useful to fill out underfull sessions, so scan the EB repeatedly during this process.

   4) The other major headache: Incredibly, APS doesn’t seem to have any hard deadline for invited abstracts. This means that for every FOCUS you and your sorters must manually keep track of what abstracts are still missing, trust those speakers not to pull out, and allocate 36 minutes for each one. MC delegated Sorters to nag missing speakers during this process, in an attempt to minimize missing abstracts, but some of them will still wait forever. I also asked them to at least affirm to me that they did plan to speak, even if they were too busy to get an abstract in.

   Sample instructions sent to sorters (second of two):

   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Hello Friends

   I would like to ask that you try to finish online sorting by XX, so that I can spend YY going over things and making adjustments. If you have already finished, or when you finish, please let me know that, so that I can start looking over things.

   Please scan the Exchange Bin to see if there are any abstracts there that could fit one of your sessions.

   Finally, may I ask that you doublecheck your work. Are invited focus session talks properly labeled as such (36 min vs 12 for oral contributed)? And so on.

   Many thanks for your help.

   -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

9. Room Assignments for Sessions
   
   

   (1)Rooms hold certain numbers of people. So estimate, based on numbers of submitted abstracts, which sessions need big rooms and which need smaller rooms. Your sorting team should have done this already and entered it in the info window of each session they created. Make sure you have done this if they haven’t.

   (2) APS will tell you capacity of each room, so get a mix of small and big. Use the information on the number of abstracts submitted for the session (s) to decide on which rooms should be big or small. Few abstracts (1 session) should be a smaller room.

   (3)  Also at this time request a room reservation for the annual DBIO open business meeting. In 2019/20 the person to ask was Vinaya Sathyasheelappa sathyash@aps.org

   (4) APS checks the session chairs or offers suggestions of other possible chairs, if the ones there are not appropriate or overlapping. Suggestions of postdocs to serve as chairs are welcome and good for the postdocs, but we don’t always know who those people are.

   (5) Reserved rooms for Tall Hall (immediately following the DBIO business meeting on Tuesday) and refreshments for the Business Meeting.
   
   

10. Other Issues 

    (1) Inform the Session chairs who have award winners/new fellows in their sessions (dissertation awards and travel awards) that the person is an award winner. Ask for it to be mentioned in the introduction of the person.
    
    (2) Send a Follow Up Survey to Session Chairs
    
    (3) Finally, compile some statistics about the meeting, e.g.: How many sessions? How many female invited speakers? Session organizers? Session chairs? You’ll want to present this at the excomm meeting in March.
    
    (4) Make sure the business meeting room is big enough.
    
    (5) Send email to chairs of March Meeting to follow up to ask about room capacity and needs for next year.
    
    (6) Organize Networking Events and “Meet the Speaker” Tables.

Nominating Committee

The Nominations Committee creates the nomination list for DBIO ExCom elections for open officer and MAL (and now Early Career)  positions. Below “Chair” refers to cmte chair.

1. Nominees must meet the membership requirements in the Bylaws. 
2. Send an email to the general membership asking for ideas for nominees including self-nominations. This email must be sent early (April just after the meeting), so that the suggested nominees can be vetted by the nominating committee. Committee members also confer about sending direct solicitations to potential candidates.
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 2021, there was consensus that fielding more than the required number of candidates for each open position was undesirable.
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. In 2021 for the first time there were self-suggested and member-suggested names harvested from the online tipsheet, which was unveiled at the Annual Meeting in March and again on other occasions. All were added to the working list and annotated as above.
7. Chair consults with APS 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, including 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 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. When a candidate agrees to run, Chair requests a photo, short bio, and short statement (<250 words but can be much shorter). In 2021, 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.)
10. As a courtesy Chair circulates the slate to full Excomm. Chair then sends the slate to the 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.
11. Sec/Tres conducts election online 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.
12. 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

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 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. From these scores, 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.
7. The outgoing DBIO Chair-Elect communicates directly with nominators of specific candidates whose applications the committee felt could be strengthened for next year.
8. 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.
9. Nominations are good for two years. Past year’s nominations are automatically included in the APS online ranking system for the current year.

Early Career Award

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 voute. 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

Selection Committee Members: Arpita Upadhyaya (3 years)  (2021, 2022, 2023, chair, 2021)

Raghuveer Parthasarathy (3 years) (2021, 2022, 2023), Jennifer Ross (2 years) (2021, 2022), Bill Bialek (2 year) (2021, 2022), Wouter Hoff (1 years) (2021)

2021 DBIO chair (Margaret Gardel) selected a full 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.

The committee held two meetings, one on September 17th and one on October 1st. The first meeting was to discuss a rubric for reviewing and scoring of applications. The committee discussed that emphasis should be placed on work done during their independent career to clearly establish the originality of their research. Another equally important factor is the overall impact of their research in the field of biophysics. The committee concurred that the rubric should look at multiple dimensions of achievement including scientific accomplishments, impact and citizenship in the biophysics community. Applicant diversity and overcoming adversities as noted in the applicant statements were also considered (see criteria below). Members of the committee disclosed their conflicts to the chair and were not assigned those applications for review. All 18 applications were reviewed by each committee member (except in cases of conflict).

The following review criteria were chosen to ensure equitable and balanced evaluation of all applications: Originality of research (1-5), Impact of research (1-5), Citizenship in the scientific community (1-5), Diversity / Adversity (yes/no) (0/1), Each committee member scored the applications based on the rubric above and the average scores were calculated and the applications sorted by the Chair. 

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

•  This award should be 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.
•  It was noted by the committee that there was a preponderance of theorists in the applicant pool. The committee felt that experimentalists should be actively encouraged to apply.
• 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.

Shirley Chan Travel Awards Committee

One Early Career member on this committee.

1. Qualifications:
1. Student must be the first author of a contributed paper (talk or poster) in a session sponsored by DBIO at the March Meeting. Applicants will be chosen on the basis of the quality of their work as evidenced by the abstract of the paper, a letter of support from their thesis advisor and the travel distances. The committee should take into account the minority status of the applicant.
2. Both student and advisor, 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!).
3. Use an application (linked online as pdf or MS Word). No more than 2 students from one advisor may apply.
2. Committee Should:
1. The deadline for the travel award should coincide 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 sent to Sec/Tres who will check DBIO status of student and advisor.
3. Eligible applications will be sent to committee no later than Dec 1.
4. Travel Award committee will determine the winners by January 1.
5. Committee should send the list of awardees to APS to be published on the award webpage. 
6. Committee chair should contact session chairs before the APS March Meeting to encourage the announcement of these awards while introducing students before their talks.
   

Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Biological Physics

The 2021 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. 

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

Nominations will be collected by APS. 

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.

In 2020: Members were messaged by e-mail and in the annual business meeting and urged to nominate strong, diverse candidates.

[Steps were taken to ensure diversity in the committee itself, and equity in its deliberations, but that does not appear to be the substance of the question asked.]

Travel Funds to Broaden Participation in DBIO Sessions at MM2022

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tCoip1LcmfnQ9JjDFNmXhmBxoZzf54D1HMjjDIeZjrA/edit?usp=sharing.

Timeline of Important DBIO Yearly Events

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

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

• ~3/15 March 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
• Chair & ExCom select Fellowship Committee Members. S-T notifies APS by 3/31.

April

• 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. 
• 4/16/2021  MG sends Canvassing requests to ExComm, Community for Awards and Fellows; Get a list of eligible DBIO members; 
• 4/20 Margaret Cheung updates the form for Focus and Invited Sessions and then sends out information to membership and encourages submissions
• 4/25 S-T submits ExCom Meeting Minutes from Annual Meeting?

 May

• 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. 

 June

• 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

 July

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

August

• Early Career Award 

 September

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

 October

• 10/31 Nominations Cmte tells Orit who is on the ballot; bylaws will be put up for a vote

Useful Information for 2021-2022

Send Emails Out/Get Information/Update Webpage

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

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