From the Drosophila Board Election Committee:

Dear Drosophila Colleagues,

Thanks to all who voted in December and January in the Drosophila Board election! Results are now in. First, a little background. The Fly Board 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) ensuring 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 Drosophila Image Awards.

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. 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. This year, we elected representatives who will serve from 2022–2024 for the following regions: Mid-Atlantic (Downstate New York; New Jersey; Eastern Pennsylvania; Delaware; West Virginia; Washington, D.C.; Maryland; Virginia), California (California, Hawaii), Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

From your nominations, we identified an outstanding group of scientists who agreed to run for this set of seats. You can see all the candidates and their statements along with the election results here. We’re very grateful to all the candidates!

The following candidates will join the Board in 2022:

• President-elect: Harmit Singh Malik
• Europe Representative: Daria Siekhaus
• Mid-Atlantic Representative: Hakeem Lawal
• Asia Representative: Mousumi Mutsuddi
• Latin America Representative: John Ewer
• California/Hawaii Representative: Blake Riggs

Thanks to all, including FlyBase for managing the election and the GSA for publicizing it.

The 2021 Drosophila Board Election Committee:
Alisa Armstrong, Erika Geisbrecht, Tina Tootle, Iswar Hariharan, and Mark Peifer