Transitions
The ISCB
office has traditionally moved with the President of the Society.
Thus, over the past two months we have transitioned the office
from Stanford University to the San Diego Supercomputer Center
(SDSC), an organized research unit of the University of California
San Diego (UCSD). Thanks to Stanley Jacob for his administrative
support and to Jon Dugan for his duties as Webmaster while
the office was at Stanford.
SDSC and
UCSD have made commitment to support the Society while it
is here and offer significant resources, both human and machine,
on an as-needed basis to support the membership of the Society.
Central to this effort is the hiring of BJ Morrison McKay
(see newsletter article) the
Societys Administrative Officer. McKay is available
at admin@iscb.org to help
with any problems related to ISCB. Web support includes Jennifer
Matthews and Joshua Polterock. Web updates sent to admin@iscb.org
will be added to the ISCB Web site, www.iscb.org
within 24 hours.
With the
move of the membership database to SDSC, the website was redesigned
to improve functionality and to implement it using the free
software MySQL. Future stewards of the site will not need
to have a Sybase license to operate the ISCB membership database.
The revised schema permits better tracking of membership and
enables the production of monthly reports on membership activity.
Tracy Zhao serves as our database administrator.
Matthews
has also produced the template for this newsletter as well
as an ISCB poster to display at meetings and membership flyers
to distribute at major conferences. Thanks also go to Kim
Baldridge for overseeing these staff efforts and to Chris
Smith who interfaces the ISCB to UCSDs HR and finance
departments.
As the
Society becomes more established, moving the office with each
new President becomes impractical. We will explore the use
of a management company or an organization like the Federation
of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) and
their equivalents in Europe and Asia to help represent the
membership and to provide a single voice in support of our
science to government and society at large. This will allow
the next President to hit the ground running with new programs
and activities from which the Society can benefit.
ISCB
Extends Gratitude to Stanley Jacob
ISCB wishes
to acknowledge and thank Stanley Jacob for his dedication
as the Society administrator for the past two years. March
31 2002 marked Jacobs final day. For the past two years,
Stanley Jacob has played an integral role in the Society.
Jacobs management of the ISCBs membership, newsletter,
book keeping, and administrative tasks required of a non-profit,
has kept well apace with the Societys rapid growth since
2000. During his tenure as administrator, Jacob has seen the
ISCB membership more than double, in that same time, participation
at ISCBs primary conference, ISMB has grown from about
580 to over 1300.
Thank
you Stanley. You will be missed.
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