President’s Letter: The Many Legacies of ASPB

At ASPB, so much has changed over the past few years. Our flagship journals are now online only and offer open access options; we welcome the initiation of our new journal, Plant Direct; and ASPB is set to better interconnect its members with the larger plant science community by way of the Plantae digital ecosystem. … Read more

ASPB 2016 Election Results

Many thanks to those members who took the time to vote this spring; and hearty congratulations to our newly elected Council members, Harry Klee (incoming president elect) and Andrew Bent (incoming secretary elect)! Harry and Andrew will begin their next cycles of service to ASPB on October 1, 2016. Thanks, too, to Erich Grotewold and … Read more

Engaging Students and the Public with Science

How to get your audiences to care as much as you do. You can explain your research with publication-worthy panache. So why don’t people outside of your niche seem to get jazzed about your topic? Maybe your presentation is upside down. Successfully engaging the public or students is much more – and less – than … Read more

Plant Science Decadal Vision Rolls out at AAAS

On December 3rd, 2013, the National Plant Science Council partnered with the American Chemical Society; the Alliance of Crop, Soil, and Environmental Science Societies; and the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) to co-host a briefing on the report Unleashing a Decade of Innovation in Plant Science: A Vision for 2015-2025. The briefing was also … Read more

The Flowering of ORCiD: One ID to manage your scientific research across disciplines

If you recognize what the following string of 16 digits represents, you are welcome to stop reading: 0000-0002-4669-3215. If not, here’s a question: Wouldn’t it be cool if each scientist’s contributions to scholarship across all disciplines could be discovered, cited, and curated quickly and easily? That is exactly what the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCiD) … Read more

Career Opportunities for Plant Scientists

Call me a nerd, if you wish; but the Career Tree, which I first saw in a report published over a decade ago by the European Science Foundation and the Human Frontiers Science Program, is one of my favorite images: The Career Tree depicts a plant, so it appeals to my innate pro-plant bias. (And … Read more

Plant Biology 2013 Video: Facing the Challenges of the Future

Plant Biology 2013 President’s Symposium – Plant Biology’s Diversity Molds Our Future – Part 1 Organizer: Peggy Lemaux, University of California, Berkeley, CA Speakers: Cary Fowler, Genebanks: Past, Present, and Possibly Future Phil Pardey, The Shifting Structure of Food and Agricultural R&D Worldwide Jonathan Lynch, Roots of the Second Green Revolution James Dale (recording not being released), … Read more