1. Call to order. − President Ken Wolfe called the council meeting to order at 11:00
AM, 26 July. In attendance were President Ken Wolfe, Past-President Jody Hey, President-Elect
Charles F. Aquadro, Secretary Manyuan Long, Treasurer John Archibald, and Councillors
Soojin Yi, Dan Graur, and Robin Bush. Molecular Biology and Evolution (MBE) Editor-in-Chief
Marcy Uyenoyama, Genome Biology and Evolution (GBE) Editor-in-Chief William Martin,
SMBE2012 conference organizer James McInerney, Oxford University Press Senior Publisher
Cathy Kennedy attended part of the meeting. The council meeting began with Introductions.
The business meeting was held on 29 July (see below).
2. Approval of minutes. − The Council approved the minutes of the 2010 Council and
Business meetings, published in the December 2011 issue of MBE and GBE (first published
online: November 16, 2010).
3. Editors’ report. − The editors of MBE and GBE gave reports on the current status
of their journals (see the editors’ reports).
4. Treasurer's report. − Treasurer John Archibald summarized the financial state of
the Society. The records indicate that the Society is in excellent financial health.
(See the treasurer's report).
5. Secretary's report. − Secretary Manyuan Long reviewed the council actions over
the preceding year, summarized here:
Election of SMBE officers. Past-President Jody Hey appointed the Nomination Committee
in January to select candidates for the offices of President-Elect, treasurer and
two Councilors. Members of the nomination committee included Montse Aguadé (Chair),
Jennifer Wernegreen, Brandon Gaut, Manolo Gouy, and Manyuan Long (ex officio). After
extensive discussion, the nomination committee proposed the candidate list: Sudhir
Kumar (Arizona State University, Tempe, USA) and Wolfgang Stephan (University of Munich,
Munich, Germany) for President-Elect, Stephen Wright (University of Toronto, Toronto,
Canada) and Laurent Duret (University of Lyon, Lyon, France) for Councilor 1, Yoko
Satta (Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Hayama, Japan) and Hervé Philippe
(University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada) for Councilor 2, and Aoife McLysaght (Trinity
College, Dublin, Ireland) and John Logsdon (University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA) for
Treasurer. The elections were conducted online July 1 through July 25, at the OUP
member-subscription site, where short biographies of each candidate were made available.
In the final tally, Sudhir Kumar was elected to hold the office of President-Elect
(2012); Laurent Duret and Yoko Satta were elected to hold the offices of two Councilors
(2012-2014), respectively; and Aoife McLysaght was elected to hold of the office of
Treasurer (2012-2014).
The Bylaw Amendments. As SMBE has grown in importance the responsibilities of people
who work for the society have also grown. The Council drafted a proposed change to
the SMBE bylaws to increase the size of the SMBE council from the current 3 Councilors
to 6 Councilors while all the other positions remain unchanged. This change means
that beginning in the Spring 2011 election, two counselors rather than one will be
elected each year. The elections were conducted online November 29, 2010, through
January 13, 2011, at the OUP member-subscription site, where the amended Bylaw was
available. In the 239 ballot papers entered out of a total electorate of 964, 235
voted for the Bylaws Amendments and 4 voted to keep the Bylaws unchanged. The amended
Bylaws were passed in the election.
Other Activities in the Preceding Year. The Council also discussed, or made decisions
on the following issues: (1) Beginning in the Spring 2011, SMBE will support 1-2 SMBE
satellite meetings every year. (2) The Council endorsed the proposal made by Naoyuki
Takahata and Marta Wayne to the Japanese government, that monitoring of biological
organisms should be included as part of a scientific response to the Fukushima accident.
(3) Adding SMBE to the international organization of professional societies. (4) Advertising
various meetings related to evolution on the SMBE website. (5) Organizing the Undergraduate
Mentoring and Diversity program at the annual meeting. 10 undergraduates won travel
awards to the meeting (one from France, one from South Africa, one from Japan, seven
from USA).
Report on 2011 SMBE Annual Meeting: The 19th annual SMBE meeting was held 26-30 July,
2010, at the Kyoto University and Miyako Messe, Kyoto, Japan, organized by a committee
headed by Takashi Gojobori and Saitou Naruya. The meeting attracted 630 registered
participants from 34 countries/regions. 273 speakers presented their researchers in
the Nei Lecture, 4 plenary talks, and Walter Fitch Prize Symposium, 15 symposia, 14
workshops, and 7 contributed oral presentation sessions.
The SMBE awarded numerous prizes, with the winners announced at the final banquet.
Eight contestants were selected to compete for the Walter Fitch Student Prize, and
Kerry Geiler-Samerotte from Harvard University, Cambridge, USA, was the winner. SMBE
also gave the best poster prize for postdoctoral fellows to Christopher Illingworth
from Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, UK, and Valer Gotea, National Human Genome Research
Institute, USA; the best poster prize for graduate students to Ryuichi Sugino from
Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Japan and Ding He from Uppsala University,
Sweden; and the best poster prize for undergraduate students to Sarah Erb from Indiana
University, USA, and Thomas Weighill, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. The meeting
also provided travel awards to 10 postdocs, 10 graduate students, and 10 undergraduate
students.
The main sponsors were SMBE. The organizing committee did their best to optimize the
budget and the final contribution from SMBE was ∼$30,000 USD.
Future Annual Meetings: The 20th annual meeting will be in June 21-24 in Dublin, Ireland,
organized by a committee headed by James McInerney. The 21st annual meeting will be
in 2013 in Chicago, USA, and Manyuan Long discussed the preliminary organizing activities
for the meeting.
The Council made two decisions on the following two issues related to annual meetings.
(1) SMBE will provide financial support (in the amount of $1500 domestic/intracontinental
and $2500 long-haul) of the future (one year out) scientific organizer (one individual)
of the upcoming SMBE annual meeting to attend the current year annual meeting and
Council meeting in order to present to Council the plans for the upcoming meeting,
to provide slides to be used for advertising the upcoming meeting to the attendees,
to alert Council of any concerns, and to solicit Council and Member input as meeting
plans are finalized. (2) SMBE will also provide financial support (in the amount of
$1500 domestic/intracontinental and $2500 long-haul) of the future (one year out)
administrative organizer of the upcoming SMBE annual meeting to attend the current
year annual meeting and Council meeting in order to present, together with support
of the scientific organizer, to Council the plans for the upcoming meeting, to alert
them of any concerns, and to solicit input as meeting plans are finalized.
SMBE Website: The SMBE website was redesigned with a new SMBE logo and new archives
to record the related SMBE activities by the extensive efforts of the Councilor Dan
Graur with others in the Council and the web manager Wayne Parkhurst.
The Journals and Membership: The Council approved the reports of Marcy Uyenoyama and
William Martin (see Editor's report) and recommended associate editors from them.
The Council left unchanged the US membership fee, with membership fees in other currencies
varying due to changes of exchange rates in the past year. The Council decided to
implement a Letter of Amendment to its 2006 MBE contract with Oxford University Press,
specifying that, in return for OUP agreeing to cut the Open Access charge to a flat
fee of $2500, SMBE agrees to guarantee OUP an income of $100,000 per annum and to
review the situation if Open Access uptake reaches 50%. The Editor-in-Chief candidates
for MBE after the current EiC Marcy Uyenoyama completes her term have been entensively
discussed.
6. Adjournment. − The meeting was adjourned at 6:00 pm.
Business Meeting
1. Call to order. − President Ken Wolfe called to order the annual SMBE Business meeting
at 8:00 am, on 29 July 2010. About 50 SMBE members were in attendance.
2. New business. − The President summarized the discussion at the Council meeting.
He announced the results of the election for new council members and the new SMBE
satallite meetings in the future, following a successful small meeting at Penn State
earlier in 2011. The President announced the locations of the SMBE meetings for the
next two years. The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 am.