I hope this newsletter finds everyone healthy and that their semester is off to a great start.
Our IS-MPMI community has proven to be remarkably resilient during these turbulent times. The launch of several new society initiatives has been instrumental in keeping us connected and enabling us to share our exciting research from afar. Kudos to
MPMI Editor-in-Chief
Jeanne Harris and her team for hosting the monthly
What's New in
MPMI Virtual Seminar series highlighting research advances published in the
MPMI journal. These free events have been instrumental in engaging colleagues working on plant–microbe interactions, both society members and nonmembers, from 61 countries.
We have also received enthusiastic feedback on the
eSymposia series and
Translational Science Workshops held in 2021. Many thanks to the organizers, speakers, and moderators for their contributions. Moving forward, we aim to offer additional online events, especially during non-congress years. I encourage you to submit your suggestions for new research themes to cover in the near future. Feel free to
write to me.
Unfortunately, we had to cancel the 2022 IS-MPMI Congress planned for JeJu, Korea, due to the uncertainty of COVID-19 impacting the safety of our community. We are so grateful to the entire local organizing committee, led by Professors
Doil Choi,
Keehoon Sohn, and
Ho Won Jung and the Korean Society for Plant Pathology, for their extraordinary efforts to plan a congress during a pandemic. We hope to hold a meeting in Korea in the coming years.
Our inability to gather in-person as a society again this year has greatly impacted our junior colleagues and their professional development. To address this, IS-MPMI will be hosting two half-day virtual symposia to highlight the work of early-career researchers. The dates are June 8 and 9 and September 20 and 21, 2022. More details about the 2022 Early Career Showcase can be found
here. Please nominate your colleagues! The deadline is March 31. We will follow up with a speaker program very soon. This event is free to society members.
I am hopeful that 2023 will allow us to meet in-person. Be sure to mark your calendars for July 16–20, 2023, to join us for our 2023 IS-MPMI Congress in Providence, RI, USA.
Roger Innes will take the helm of our society in July 2022 as president and is leading efforts to organize a stimulating meeting program.
In closing, I would like to send peaceful wishes and support to our colleagues around the world, especially those who are impacted by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Our academic and research missions play important and long-lasting roles in the vitality of our global society.
Wishing you all the best,
Mary Beth Mudgett
President, IS-MPMI
