While COMPASS has been busy year-round, many of our programs are leading up to the Annual Meeting, coming up in just a couple of weeks. The full program is available online, and you can also download a convenient mobile app for Android and iPhone/iPad.
In the following weeks, the Career Development and Outreach subcommittees will each publish a post here on the COMPASS blog about relevant Annual Meeting events. However, we’re also involved in a few general interest activities, described below. We hope that these occasions will provide us with lots of time to talk individually with you about how we can make our work more productive and impactful. ASCB, as an international scientific society, is engaged in policy issues, career development resources, and outreach initiatives that would normally be outside the reach of an isolated trainee. If you’re a graduate student or postdoc passionate about making an impact in these realms, ask us more about what it’s like to be a part of COMPASS; information about how to apply to join the committee will be released early next year.
Feel free to say hi as we roam the hallways and exhibit floor – you’ll be able to recognize us by our blue COMPASS badge ribbons. We look forward to meeting you!
COMPASS Open Forum: 10:00-11:00am, Monday 12/16, Room 215
We’ll open with a brief, 15-minute presentation about of the activities of COMPASS, describing what we’ve been up to this year and what we have planned for 2014. After this, each COMPASS subcommittee (Career Development, Communications, Social, and Outreach) will have a table set up for individual or small group conversations. The purpose of this interactive format is to not only give you a tailored view of what each group is doing, but also to get your opinions on what we could be doing to better serve your needs and interests.
If you’re interested in joining COMPASS in 2014, please come meet us in person! With the exception of the brief introduction, the open format of the event will make it easy to stop in, so don’t be shy if you can’t commit to the whole hour.
COMPASS & ASCB Ambassadors Meet & Greet: 9:30pm-?, Monday 12/16, Barcadia
All are welcome to grab tasty adult beverages with us after the Nobel lectures. By no means an official Annual Meeting event, we simply want an informal setting in which to get to know each other. Everyone interested in COMPASS or the ASCB Ambassadors program should drop in!
ePoster talks: 12:00-1:30pm and 2:00-3:30pm, Sunday-Tuesday, Room 231 & 232
This year, ASCB is debuting an exciting new presentation format that COMPASS is thrilled to participate in through session moderation and abstract selection. ePoster talks are 3-minute multimedia presentations through content displayed on a single slide, Prezi canvas, or .pdf file. Sessions on topics parallel to the minisymposia run concurrently with normal poster sessions, in separate rooms. For the first 30 minutes of the session, large monitors around the room will display each ePoster in that session for viewing before the talks begin. Much like the first ASCB Poster Session in 1973, we hope this experiment will begin a new tradition at the Annual Meeting!
Surveys
At COMPASS-related events, we’ll have paper version of a survey we’re developing to gather information about ASCB’s trainee member base. Though it will take only a few minutes to fill out, these surveys will be invaluable for us in planning future programming. More information, and links to electronic versions, will be forthcoming after the meeting.
About the Author:
Jessica Polka is director of ASAPbio, a biologist-driven nonprofit working to improve life sciences communication. She is also a visiting scholar at the Whitehead Institute and a member of ASCB's public policy committee.
