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ISCB
President-Elect Elections Process
From August
22 through September 5, 2003, all ISCB members will have the opportunity
to vote for the next President of the Society by casting votes for
the newly created position of President-Elect. The Board of Directors
created this position earlier this year as the first step in an
effort to develop a clear leadership path within the Society.
Current Officers
(President Gribskov, Vice President Tramontano, Treasurer Rocke,
and Secretary Bryant) were all elected last year to serve two-year
terms that will expire on January 21, 2005. As Gribskov and Rocke
are both running for President-Elect the winner will serve simultaneously
in his current role through the expiration of his term. If a non-Officer
runs in the future, the President-Elect would become an ISCB Officer
and Executive Committee member for one year in a “training”
role alongside the President before taking over the presidency for
the following term.
A review of
each of the President-Elect candidate statements is presented below.
Full statements, including Curriculum Vitae and a synopsis of current
research work, can be viewed at www.iscb.org/candidate_list.php.
Beginning August 22 members will be able to cast votes on the ISCB
website by logging in on the membership page at www.iscb.org/login.php
and selecting President-Elect Election from the menu that presents
on the left of the page.
CANDIDATE:
Michael Gribskov, Ph.D., Adjunct Associate Professor, University
of California, San Diego
- What do
you think are the major issues facing ISCB over the next three
years?
- Finances—ISCB
is highly dependent on the ISMB meeting for operating funds.
This puts the entire society at risk if the ISMB meeting
is less successful than expected.
- Scientific
leadership—ISCB needs to play a stronger role in organizing
cutting edge meetings, book series, workshops, etc. that
are of the highest quality.
- Improved
structure of the society to better interact with members
to accomplish scientific and policy goals.
- How do
you plan to address these issues? How should the society address
these issues?
- The
executive committee and board is currently working to diversify
funding sources to lower our dependence on ISMB. Solutions
include a corporate sponsorship program, an improved contract
with OUP (publisher of the society journal, Bioinformatics),
and belt tightening at ISCB.
- It
is time to move beyond just ISMB and sponsor a wider suite
of meetings that focus on the cutting edge of research.
We should also consider an expanded tutorial program to
improve the general standard of training. Other possible
activities such as a book or text series are under consideration.
- A major
accomplishment this year has been initiation of a process
of strategic planning. Changes are being implemented now
to improve the structure of ISCB.
- What nonscientific
expertise do you bring to the Board?
- Experience
running a lab with an annual budget of ~$ 1M
- Experience
on ISCB board of directors; 1 yr experience as ISCB VP;
1 yr experience as ISCB President
- Service
on many advisory boards, government review panels, program
committees, and editorial boards.
- Apart from
your research, what service have you performed for this field
or ISCB so far?
- In
the long term, I think the strategic planning process, in
which we are now engaged, will have the greatest impact
on the success of ISMB.
- Initiation
of a successful corporate sponsorship program will be very
important.
CANDIDATE: David Rocke, Ph.D., Professor, University of
California, Davis
- What do
you think are the major issues facing ISCB over the next three
years?
- The
finances of ISCB are not yet on a firm footing. They are
too dependent on a single meeting (ISMB) and the present
revenues are not sufficient to sustain the needed growth
of the society.
- The
organization of ISCB needs some improvements to better meet
the goals of the society.
- We
need to continue to improve the ISCB sponsored publications.
We need to explore the eventual establishment of additional
high-quality publication outlets for our work.
- We
should explore more extensive cooperation with other related
professional societies, including joint sponsorship of meetings
and possibly journals. These may include societies from
both the biological side (such as our fellow FASEB societies)
and from the computational/mathematical/statistical side
such as ACM, IEEE, SIAM, and ASA.
- We
should assist in developing curricula and publications to
further education in computational biology and bioinformatics.
- How do
you plan to address these issues? How should the society address
these issues?
- I believe
that we are beginning as a Board of Directors (BOD) to address
many of these issues. I think an important additional route
to improvement is to gain information from our sister societies
both in biology and in computation/mathematics/statistics.
How are they financed? What services do they provide for
members? How is the board and staff organized? How are committees
appointed? We need to investigate more extensively the opinions
of our members on what ISCB can do for them and for the
discipline. We should conduct a carefully-planned, scientifically-designed
survey of members and potential members (such as attendees
at relevant meetings) to help in the already ongoing strategic
planning effort.
- What nonscientific
expertise do you bring to the Board?
- Although
I am now appointed in the College of Engineering and the
School of Medicine at UC Davis, I spent 25 years teaching
statistics and management science in schools of business.
Through teaching, seminars, and some formal course work,
I have acquired a working knowledge of the basic business
disciplines, including finance, accounting, and management
information systems. I now manage a research center with
a $3 million budget, and have been Vice-Chair of my main
department. I have also been Treasurer of ISCB for a year
and a half, and have a good idea of the financial and organizational
challenges we face.
- Apart from
your research, what service have you performed for this field
or ISCB so far?
- I have
been Treasurer of ISCB since January 2002. As a member of
the Executive Committee of the BOD, I have been involved
in all major decisions. Besides the budget, I am currently
responsible for negotiating the renewal of the contract
with Oxford University Press for the Bioinformatics
Journal.
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