FlyBase:Request for Fly Board Nominations

Request for Nominations – Future President and Treasurer of the Fly Board, Regional Representatives

What is the Fly Board?

This is a group of your peers who carry out a number of important functions for the Drosophila Research Community. These functions include (1) advocating for the Drosophila research community by representing your best interests to funding agencies, other scientific organizations, and the general public; (2) facilitating an open and productive relationship between the research community and resources such as FlyBase, the Drosophila Genome Resource Center, groups heading efforts to develop better tools and information resources, and the directors of the stock centers; (3) insuring a successful annual North American Drosophila Research Conference; (4) administrating our meeting funds; and (5) administrating awards, such as the Larry Sandler Memorial Lecture Award, undergraduate travel awards, and the Image Award.

Who are we electing this year?

Every year, we elect a future President of the Fly Board. The President serves for one year as President elect and for one year as President. To ensure long-term memory of the Board, the President will serve in an advisory role to the Fly Board for three additional years after their term ends. (See Responsibilities of the Drosophila Board Presidents for complete job details).

Every three years, we elect a Treasurer of the Fly Board. The treasurer keeps track of our meeting funds and investments, and makes financial decisions based on input from the Fly Board. Our current treasurer is Michelle Arbeitman.

Every year, we also elect other representatives, including Regional Representatives and a representative from Primarily Undergraduate Institutions in the US. This is a three-year commitment to Fly Board, with a subset of representatives turning over every year. (See Responsibilities of the Regional Representatives for complete job details).

This year, we will be electing representatives who will serve from 2021 through 2023 for the following regions:

Mountain (past representative was Celeste Berg) (this region includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Alaska)

New England (past representative was Kim McCall) (this region includes Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island)

Australia/Oceana (past representative was Coral Warr)

Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (US) (past representative was Amanda Novell)

The Fly Board has made a strong commitment to truly represent the diverse community of researchers who work on Drosophila. To that end, we have started this Open Nomination Process for all elected positions on the Fly Board. We invite you to nominate people who you think would do a great job representing the fly community. Self-nominations are welcome. We especially encourage nominations of women and individuals from groups that have been historically underrepresented on the Fly Board, and faculty at any career stage are eligible. Although you must live and work in the region you represent, you can nominate individuals for any region and you can vote for representatives from all regions in the final elections. Please send any of us names and a brief description (just a few lines, but this part is optional) of why your nominee would be good for the job by August 1, 2019.

We look forward to engaging each member of the fly community in electing a Fly Board that will be truly representative of all of us and will help advance the shared goals of our community.

Thanks,

The 2019 Elections Board

Deborah Andrew (dandrew@jhmi.edu), Iswar Hariharan (ikh@berkeley.edu), Patrick O'Grady (ogrady@drosophilaevolution.com), Laura Reed (lreed1@ua.edu) Tin-Tin Su (tin.su@colorado@edu), Noah Whiteman (noahkwhiteman@gmail.com)