October 29-31, 2015
Location: Sam Houston State University (shsu.edu)
Huntsville, Texas  77340

Download the Preliminary Program for the 2015 Spring Meeting (PDF)

Register now to attend!

Please mark your calendars to attend the 2015 Texas Branch Fall Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. This meeting will be hosted by Sam Houston State University, at the main campus in Huntsville, Texas on October 29^th to 31^st. The conference will include both faculty and student oral presentations, in topics that range across microbiology, as well as molecular and cellular biology. We will also have an afternoon dedicated to undergraduate and graduate student poster presentations, and will award prizes for the best talks and posters in each category. We will have Dr. Briana Burton (Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University) as the ASM Distinguished Lecturer.

The sessions on Saturday will focus on teaching and learning, with short presentations later in the morning called Microbrews, modeled on a practice from the ASM Conference for Undergraduate Educators Microbrews are about classroom or laboratory learning activities, so best practice sharing with other instructors.  If you have an idea to present, please email tprimm@shsu.edu

Registration

We try to keep registration fees low, to encourage faculty members to bring as many students as possible. We will accept early registrations until October 5th; below is a list of our registration fees to help you organize your budget.

The registration fee includes all meals on Friday and breakfast on Saturday.

Please Note: A late fee of $25 will be assessed for all registrations after October 5th, 2015.

Register now to attend!

Housing

Sixty-seven hotel rooms have been blocked in three local hotels.  The rooms are blocked until October 20^th.  Please contact the hotels directly for discounted rates and reservations.

Student Competition

There will be four categories of student competition and awards.  The categories will be at the Undergraduate and Graduate level, both for Posters and Oral Presentations.  If you or your students submit an abstract, please be sure to indicate on the form if you are an undergraduate or graduate student and if you would like to present your work as a poster or a 15-min talk.  We will accept Abstract submissions until October 5^th.

Upload a one-page abstract to our website here. PLEASE name your abstract file as follows:

u (undergraduate) or g (graduate) or p (post-doc) followed by last name and first name initial.

For example: John Smith undergraduate student will save his abstract file as: usmithj; Mary Jones graduate student will save her abstract file as: gjonesm

Please indicate whether you are interested in a poster or an oral presentation. Student oral presentations will be limited to 15 minutes in length. Posters should not be larger than 48 inches wide.

Your picture may be used on our website.

Abstract Submission Form

DEADLINE: October 5^th, 2015

Parking

We are still arranging free-parking for the conference attendees, and we will post the information a soon as possible.

STAFS Tour

There will be an optional tour of the Southeast Texas Applied Forensic Science Facility of SHSU, including ongoing research on microbial decomposition of human bodies.  This tour will be held 3-5pm on Thursday the 29^th, before the meeting.  If you are interested, please email Dr. Aaron Lynne [aml027@shsu.edu].  Note the tour is limited to 15 participants.

Cancellations and Refunds

If a cancellation is received before or on October 15th, a registration refund will be processed. If cancellations are received after October 15th, refunds will not be processed.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the meeting Co-Chairs, Dr. Madhu Choudhary and Dr. Todd Primm.

Registration and abstracts:  Dr. Hyuk Cho.

Please distribute this announcement to anyone else you think might be interested in attending the conference.

Thank you, and I hope you’ll join us in Huntsvegas!

Register now to attend!