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News from ISME’s Early Career Scientist Committee

December 2022

The ISME Early Career Scientist Committee (ECSC) saw each other for the first time in person at the ISME-18 meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland. They organized a Roundtable event together with Mike Manefield (UNSW, Australia) on the topic “Nurturing careers and community building in microbiology”. Marc Strous (University of Calgary Canada) and Dianne Newman (Caltech, USA) as panel members discussed common barriers for early career researchers (ECRs), rules of engagement, and new formulas for meetings to make them more inclusive. Since this year, one member of the ECSC also serves in the ISME executive advisory board to represent early career researchers.

Check out the latest ISME Conversation with Raquel Peixoto, our new ISME vice-president and associate professor at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia. ECSC Chair Laetitia Wilkins asks Raquel Peixoto about her career choices, moving labs, and juggling the life of a scientist with having a family. Several exciting new interviews are in the pipeline and will be published early next year.

The ECSC has also reached out to the ISME ambassadors to organize new activities together for ISME members during the off-conference year 2023 and help organize regional meetings. Please reach out to individual members in the ECSC if you have specific ideas for new ECR activities or feedback.

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2021

Over the summer, the ISME Early Career Scientist Committee (ISME ECSC) has reviewed applications to the call for new members and interviewed the short-listed candidates. We are thrilled to introduce...

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our new committee members: Dr. Ahmed Shibl (new co-chair; researcher at the Public Health Research Center, New York University, Abu Dhabi); Dr. Ashley Dungan (research fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia); Dr. Emil Ruff (assistant scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, USA); Dr. Adoukè Nadège Agbodjato (postdoctoral researcher at North West University (NWU), South Africa); and Dr. Anna Dragos (assistant professor at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia). The role of the chair has been passed on from Dr. Jillian Petersen (University of Vienna, Austria) to Dr. Laetitia Wilkins (Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen, Germany).

Freshly strengthened by the new members, the committee is currently organizing their session for the upcoming meeting isme-18 in Lausanne, Switzerland entitled “Trailblazing in science: the challenges and rewards of forging a new path in science”. There is also going to be a lunch networking event.

Dr. Lutgarde Raskin was interviewed by Dr. Sarah Preheim from the ISME ECSC for ISME conversations, and there are new ISME highlights written by Thato Motlhalamme from the South African Grape and Wine Research Institute, Stellenbosch University, South Africa and by Ben Jesuorsemwen Enagbonma from the University of Benin, Nigeria.>

The ISME ECSC would like to raise awareness about preprinting options. Our ECR colleagues in America, spearheaded by Dr. Cassandra Ettinger, have been putting together a guide to Preprinting for Early Career Researchers.