Plant Biology 2016: Publishing workshops

Attending Plant Biology 2016? The conference starts in six months, but if you want your work to be considered for a minisymposium or lightning talk, you need to submit your abstract now (or by 25 Jan, EST). You can read more about the conference, including major symposia topics and speakers, and the countless networking opportunities … Read more

Plant Biology 2016: Abstract deadline 25 January

Attending Plant Biology 2016? The conference starts in six months, but if you want your work to be considered for a minisymposium or lightning talk, you need to submit your abstract now (or by 25 Jan, EST). You can read more about the conference, including major symposia topics and speakers, and the countless networking opportunities … Read more

Recognizing featured Plant Cell first authors, December 2015

Recently, we’ve been profiling first authors of Plant Cell papers that are selected for In Brief summaries. Here are the first-author profiles from December’s issue of The Plant Cell. Hyo-Jun Lee, featured first author of Systemic Immunity Requires SnRK2.8-Mediated Nuclear Import of NPR1 in Arabidopsis Current Position: Post-doctoral fellow, Department of Chemistry, Seoul National University, … Read more

Our STEM Workforce and The Disruptive Innovation in Higher Education Summit

New visions and multi-faceted collaborations to creatively, efficiently, and collaboratively remaster STEM higher education and its K-12 pipeline. The Disruptive Innovation in Higher Education Summit presented by the STEMconnector® Higher Education Council and sponsored by Cengage Learning, myCollegeOptions®, and Monsanto was a dynamic event aimed at advancing a national (US) effort to meet the education … Read more

Generation Agriculture: Who Will Feed the World in the Next Generation?

As noted in and blogged with permission from Friday Notes, CAST: Reports, surveys, loud headlines–Who Will Feed the Nine Billion? After observing young people in FFA, at the World Food Prize, in university activities, and at many other occasions, we have confidence that Generation Agriculture will rise to the occasion. In the meantime, the stories … Read more

Recognizing our “first authors” September 2015

Recognizing our Authors is a regular blog series that profiles ASPB’s most highly cited authors. Recently, we’ve been profiling first authors of Plant Cell papers that are selected for In Brief summaries. Here we present the first-author profiles from September’s issue of The Plant Cell. Jonathan Flowers, featured author of Whole-Genome Resequencing Reveals Extensive Natural … Read more

President’s Letter: What’s Cooking

We plant biologists live in exciting times, in terms of both scientific advances and the relevance of our collective research. Your professional organization, ASPB, is working hard to ensure that we all can stay productive and effective in our endeavors. Having returned home from Plant Biology 2015 in Minneapolis, and as my year as president … Read more

Creating a Pipeline for Food & Ag Careers Starts in Elementary School

Re-posted with permission from Robin Habeger’s blog A strong food and agricultural science education system is important for many reasons. The current release of the AGree paper titled Food and Agricultural Education in the United States highlights the need for parents, educators and policy makers to advocate for the inclusion of food and agricultural science … Read more

Federal Programs to Support Early Career Faculty

In an increasingly competitive environment to earn federal grants, opportunities exist to help researchers at the beginning of their careers. The following report contains an overview of federal government funding opportunities and fellowship programs that provide support for early career researchers working at universities or other non-government institutions. Some programs provide support for early career … Read more

Industry Careers = Good and Impactful Science

Since the advent of GMO crops, agriculture across the globe has undergone immense transformation, becoming the productive system in place today. The benefits of GMO crops are clear – corn farmers in developed countries have increased their productivity and yields. Take the U.S. for example, according to the USDA*, corn yields have grown by 35% … Read more

Plant Science Careers: Survey Summary and Infographic

In 2015, the traditional academic path remains the default and desired path for plant scientists. Further, there is a high degree of uncertainty for current early-career researchers who wish to pursue that traditional path. Those are two big takeaways from the ASPB career survey carried out earlier this year.  Worldwide, over 800 respondents from many … Read more

Winning entries of the April 2015 “Teaching Tools Proposal” competition

Earlier this year we announced a competition for proposals for the “Teaching Tools in Plant Biology” series of educational articles published by The Plant Cell. We had many excellent proposals submitted from which we selected three for further development. Sound intriguing? The competition has additional submission deadlines of August 31 and December 31 2015, and … Read more

President’s Letter: Time to PhD—Time to Publish

In this letter I would like to address two interlinked problems and offer possible solutions to both of them: (1) the relatively long duration of PhD graduate studies in many countries and (2) the increasing time it can take from research advance to publication. In the latter case, I will also address innovations that are … Read more

Experimental Plant Sciences (EPS): Seven universities, one graduate school

By Hanna Rovenich and Setareh Mohammadin of the EPS PhD council. Benefits of a Netherlands-wide multi-university graduate school The interuniversity Graduate School ‘Experimental Plant Sciences‘ (EPS) trains over 300 PhD candidates at any given time across seven different universities including Wageningen University, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Free University of Amsterdam, the University of Amsterdam, Leiden … Read more

Advance Your Career at Plant Biology 2015

This year at Plant Biology 2015 in Minneapolis – we are organizing a variety of activities to help you navigate your career in plant science. These include: Career Workshops Job Opportunities Resume Review Career Coaching Panel Discussions Onsite Career Center Get your resume reviewed. Register for your time slot now! Volunteer to review resumes Participate in Career Chats to … Read more

Feeding the Planet Summit 2015 #FoodFWD

Hosted by Planet Forward*, the 2015 Feeding the Planet Summit (April 23-24) offered cross-curricular options to help foster sustainable solutions for feeding 9.6 billion by 2050. Meeting Infographics feature key input and interactions from all participants. Topics include how research science, diversity breakthroughs, cross-cutting innovation, storytelling, and even parody (e.g. I’m Farming & I Grow … Read more

Several Distinguished Plant Scientists Elected to National Academy of Sciences 2015 Class

We are pleased to announce that several distinguished plant scientists – most of them members of the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) – have been elected as members or foreign associates of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Three members of the … Read more

Advice from a Postdoc: Take Advantage of Mentoring Opportunities with the PlantingScience Online Program

One aspect of my research training and career development that I am very passionate about is the opportunity to mentor students. As such, I am always looking for opportunities to get involved with students at earlier stages in their education. So when I discovered PlantingScience.org, an online mentoring resource which was advertised on the American … Read more

Four ways you can help the plant science community

We are currently recruiting volunteers to help with several career-related activities. 1. In-Person Career Chats at Plant Biology 2015 This year we will also be hosting informal career conversations in the Career Center — Q&A style.  There will be five sessions throughout the meeting, each centered on a different career path that could include any of the following … Read more

Where will a career in plant science take you? Participate in the survey.

From “what do you want to be when you grow up?” to “academia, industry, or something else?” we’ve been asking and answering questions about our careers throughout our entire life. The question “what’s next?” can provoke all sorts of responses and it’s something PhDs and postdocs often aren’t encouraged to explore when the answer isn’t … Read more