Progress 01/01/16 to 12/31/16
Outputs
Target Audience:This project supported the attendance by 16 graduate students and postdocs at the International Society of Plant-Microbe Interactions (IS-MPMI) 2016 XVII International Congress in Portland, Oregon, and provided an enriched experience for them. A further 50 students and postdocs were supported by NSF and ISMPMI. The conference was attended by 988 scientists from around the world in the area of plant-microbe interactions. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As detailed under Accomplishments, 509 students and postdocs attended the conference (more than 50% of all attendees). A total of 70 of these received travel awards, 20 supported by this USDA grant. The 70 students participated in a variety of activities to enrich their experience of the conference. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The travel awardees jointly wrote a report on the conference which was published in the journal "Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions" What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The 2016 IS-MPMI XVII Congress was held in Portland, Oregon, from Sunday, July 17, to Thursday, July 21, 2016. There were 26 plenary session speakers. There were also 128 concurrent session speakers, and 31 special session speakers. A strong effort was made to recruit speakers who had not presented at either of the previous two IS-MPMI Congresses. As a result nearly 75% of the speakers were new. We received an overwhelmingly positive response to this policy. We also enforced a strict policy of one talk per lab. As a result, a total of 152 different labs were represented in the plenary and concurrent session talks. This policy also was positively received. 55% of all the speakers were men and 45% were women. About half of all speakers came from outside the US, including about 34% from Europe and 18% from Asia. There were 722 posters displayed during three different poster sessions as well. 988 scientists attended the meeting. More than half of the attendees were postdocs (222; 22%) or students (287; 29%). Scientific highlights of the meeting included new emphases on the microbiome and systems biology, including an expanded focus on mutualism, together with continuing strong contributions in the areas of host resistance and pathogenic mechanisms. A total of 70 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from around the globe were supported by travel awards to attend the IS-MPMI 2016 XVII International Congress in Portland (20 supported by NSF; 20 supported by USDA; and 30 supported by IS-MPMI). The awardees were selected by concurrent session chairs and organization committee members. Wenbo Ma and Thomas Wolpert with assistance from Michelle Bierkness (IS-MPMI) took responsibility for arranging activities for the awardees during and the after the congress. The awardees were grouped into sixteen teams based on their research interest and the faculty mentors they requested to meet. Each team was assigned two of the faculty mentors nominated by the awardees. The awardees and the faculty mentors were invited to attend an orientation meeting in the afternoon of June 17, before the opening ceremony. During the orientation meeting, they listened to talks by John McDowell on publishing in the journal, MPMI and by Sophien Kamoun on disseminating scientific findings via social media. They also got the opportunity to network with their peer students and their mentors. Throughout the meeting, "networking lunches" were arranged for the awardees to interact with the speakers who had presented in the morning and previous afternoon. In addition, each group was assigned to write reports for two plenary/concurrent sessions. The reports were compiled/edited by Wenbo Ma and Thomas Wolpert, and were published in the journal "Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions" as kindly agreed by the editor-in-chief, John McDowell.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
"XVII Congress on Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions Meeting Report Reports by travel awardees for the 2016 IS-MPMI XVII Congress" Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions. 29(12), S1-S22. 2016.
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