AIBS News February 2009

• Registration and Poster Submissions Open for 2009 AIBS Annual Meeting

  The 2009 AIBS annual meeting, "Sustainable Agriculture: Greening the Global Food Supply," will be held 18–19 May at the Westin Arlington Gateway Hotel in Arlington, Virginia. The program chair is 2009 AIBS President May R. Berenbaum, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Registration, poster submission forms, and the preliminary program are online at www.aibs.org/events/annual-meeting.

  The meeting will bring together plenary speakers, panelists, and discussion groups from the basic and applied life sciences to examine food sustainability, supply, and security. The two-day program is geared toward the science-policy interface for an audience of scientists, educators, students, representatives of nongovernmental organizations, members of Congress, and the media.

  The rest of the meeting's program will be rounded out by, among other events, a contributed poster session, AIBS awards, a teachers' workshop organized by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study and the National Association of Biology Teachers, and a workshop led by the AIBS Public Policy Office focusing on Communicating Science: A Primer for Working with the Media, an AIBS publication.

  As a special event, a reception and lecture will be held the evening of 18 May at the National Academies' Keck Center in Washington, DC. The evening will also include an after-hours tour of the Koshland Science Center.

  The meeting is taking place during the "Year of Science 2009," a year of activities aimed at engaging the general public in the nature and value of the scientific enterprise. Year of Science 2009, which is co-organized by AIBS and the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science, involves more than 575 organizations. Recordings of the plenary lectures from the meeting will be available online in the AIBS Media Library (www.aibs.org/media-library/) about two months after the meeting. The meeting's confirmed speakers and the topics of their presentations, if available, are listed below:

  • Bruce Alberts (Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco; editor in chief of Science)
  • May R. Berenbaum (Department of Entomology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
  • Fred Gould (Department of Entomology, North Carolina State University); biotechnology and resistance management
  • Hans R. Herren (Millennium Institute, Arlington, Virginia); sustainable practices for food production
  • Taylor Ricketts (Conservation Science Program, World Wildlife Fund); agriculture and conservation
  • Scott Swinton (Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Michigan State University); agriculture and ecosystem services
  • Robert Tauxe (National Center for Zoonotic, Vectorborne, and Enteric Diseases; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention); foodborne diseases

  Breakout discussion sessions
  

  • Public understanding of agriculture, the food supply, and genetically modified foods
  
  
  • Biofuels
  
  
  • National Academies' report on agriculture and undergraduate science education
  
  
  • Year of Science 2009 information and planning session

  Workshops
  

  • National Association of Biology Teachers/Biological Sciences Curriculum Study
    
  • AIBS Public Policy Office: Communicating Science: A Primer for Working with the Media

• New Staff Member Joins AIBS Public Policy Office

  In December 2008, Jenna Jadin joined the AIBS Public Policy Office as a public policy associate.

  Originally from Wisconsin, Jadin completed her bachelor's degree in molecular biology, with a minor in women's studies, at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. While there she was recognized for her involvement in science and women's issues, including an invitation to a roundtable discussion about women in science with former Vice President Al Gore. Jadin completed a senior honor's thesis on her research in Anthony Bleecker's lab on an abscission gene in Arabidopsis.

  After completing her undergraduate work, Jadin moved to Boulder, Colorado, where she worked on a bat survey and research project for the Boulder Parks Department. Jadin later conducted research in Greg Odorizzi's lab at the University of Colorado on the molecular biology of yeast.

  Jadin recently completed her PhD in behavior, ecology, evolution, and systematics (BEES) at the University of Maryland in College Park. Her graduate research, supervised by Kerry Shaw, focused on male mating behavior and its effects on speciation in the Hawaiian cricket genus Laupala. During her tenure at the University of Maryland, Jadin was involved in outreach, teaching, and public policy activities. Jadin served as a biology representative to the Graduate Student Union, cofounded the BEES graduate program student union, completed coursework in the public policy school, and received a teaching fellowship for the Howard Hughes Biology Jumpstart program. She was a University of Maryland Cicadamaniac during the 2003 Brood X emergence, when she worked with the media, schools, and community groups. She was also recognized with an honorable mention designation for the AIBS Emerging Public Policy Leadership Award, and she has participated in various federal advocacy events in recent years.

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