Request for Nominations – Fly Board President, Regional Representatives

This is a group of your peers who carry out a number of important functions for the Drosophila Research Community. Fly Board 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, Stock Centers, and groups developing Drosophila research tools and information resources; (3) ensuring a successful annual North American Drosophila Research Conference in conjunction with the GSA; (4) administrating Fly Meeting funds and awards, such as the Larry Sandler Memorial Lecture Award, undergraduate travel awards, and the Image Award. The Fly Board comprises 20 elected representatives and 20 ex officio members representing various fly community resources and the GSA.

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 continuity, the President serves in an advisory role to the Fly Board for three additional years after their term ends. (See the FlyBoard page of FlyBase for complete job details).

Every year, we also elect a subset of Regional Representatives, who server three-year commitments on the Fly Board. (See the FlyBoard page of FlyBase for complete job details).

This year, we will be electing representatives for the 2021–2024 term, from the following regions:

Canada (All provinces) – currently: Julie Brill

Great Lakes (Upstate New York, Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, Michigan) – currently: Michael Welte

Southeast (North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Puerto Rico) – currently: Laura Reed

Heartland (Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Arkansas) – currently: Erika Geisbrecht

Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri) – currently: Tina Tootle

The Fly Board strives to represent the diverse community of all researchers who work with Drosophila. To that end we have an 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 in each of the positions listed above. Self-nominations are welcome. We especially encourage nominations of individuals from groups that have been historically underrepresented in Academia and Research. Faculty at any career stage are eligible. Although Nominees must work in the region they represent, you may nominate individuals for any region, and when ballots come out 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, optional) of why your nominee would be good for the job by September 1, 2020.

In addition to elected representatives, the Elections Committee will appoint one Postdoc and one PhD student as Trainee Representatives to the Fly Board for one or two year terms. Students and Postdocs interested in serving on the Fly Board are encouraged to submit self-nominations, which should include a CV, a brief statement of interest, and a letter of recommendation from the supervisor that includes a statement of commitment to support travel to the Fly Meeting, if possible.

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 2020 Elections Board

Bruce Edgar (bruce.edgar@hci.utah.edu) (chair),
Iswar Hariharan (ikh@berkeley.edu),
Patrick O'Grady (ogrady@drosophilaevolution.com),
Laura Reed (lreed1@ua.edu),
Tina Tootle (tina-tootle@uiowa.edu)