ASPB President-Elect
Elections are now underway for officers to serve in leadership positions for the Society. Several updates have been made to the process in recent years to improve community engagement and enhance transparency, and a change in the way nominations are solicited was clarified and approved recently in our ASPB Constitution and Bylaws.
Nominations and Election Process
The Nominations Committee, chaired by the president-elect and including the current president and three representatives elected, respectively, by the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee (EDIC), the Early Career Plant Scientists (ECPS) section, and the ASPB Council, officially opened and welcomed nominations for member-elected positions on the Board of Directors (BoD) from the membership in January this year. In response to member requests, the nomination form this year invited — but did not require — nominators to provide a supporting statement for their candidate. Open positions on the BoD this year are the President-elect and an at-large Elected Member from outside the United States. Nominations for these positions closed on February 28, 2025.
A list of 2025 nominees was compiled by ASPB staff, and the Nominations Committee met to discuss the attributes of each candidate for each position. The President-elect contacted the potential candidates from this pool and explained the responsibilities to identify candidates willing to take on the commitment and stand for election. A second pool of candidates was discussed by the Nominations Committee, and this included recent nominees by the membership. Again, the Nominations Committee discussed the attributes of these candidates, and the President-elect progressed through that pool and reached the same outcome with a candidate willing to accept the nomination for each position. The overall result is that four exceptional plant biologists nominated by the membership have agreed to stand for election — two as candidates for the President-elect (Tessa Burch-Smith and Thelma Madzima), and two as candidates for Elected Member (Patricia León and Paul Versleus). Read their bio sketches, and sign up to attend the “Meet the Candidates” webinar on Wednesday, May 28 to learn more about the President-elect candidates and their hopes and plans for ASPB.
The nominations committee had one additional consideration this year for the at-large Elected Member to the Board of Directors. According to the ASPB constitution, when the proportion of ASPB members residing outside the US exceeds one-third of the total membership, then one of the two at-large members elected to the Board of Directors must also be a non-US resident at the time of the election. That is the situation this year with our candidates residing in either Mexico (Patricia León) or Taiwan (Paul Verslues).
Please Be Sure to Vote
The Nominations Committee, while sensitive to the need for confidentiality in the nomination process, has done its best to conduct a fair and transparent process to elect new leaders for 2025. That includes preparing this general summary for the community. Please be sure to do your part and make your vote before elections close on June 18, 2025. The next nomination cycle will be announced in December 2025. Any suggestions for improvements are welcome; please email me at kent.chapman@unt.edu or the general ASPB email box at info@aspb.org.
2025 Nominations Committee
Kent Chapman, ASPB President-elect; Chair
Hong Ma, ASPB President
Danielle Ignace, EDIC Rep
Taylor Scroggs, Early Career Rep
Lisa Ainsworth, Council Rep
