2016-2017 Faculty Education and Mentoring Awards

Deadline: September 15, 2016

The Texas Branch of the American Society for Microbiology announces two faculty awards.  One award of $1,000 in the area of excellence in education and one award of $1,000 in the area of excellence in mentoring will be given during the 2016-2017 academic year.

Application Process

Applications must be sent electronically as PDF files to Dr. Lee Hughes, President elect of the ASM Texas Branch at Lee.Hughes@unt.edu.

Application package must include:

Mentoring Award:

1. Letter of nomination, plus at least one (but no more than 3) letters of support from previous or current mentees.
2. CV of nominee, including statement describing mentoring activities and listing information about previous mentees (e.g. degrees earned, current location, etc…), limit 5 pages.

Teaching Award:

1. Letter of nomination
2. CV and letter from nominee, including description of teaching experiences and statement of teaching philosophy
3. Examples of professional development materials (e.g. syllabi, assignments, etc…), limit 3

* All nominees should be a faculty member of a Texas Institution for Higher Learning and involved in Microbiology research or teaching.  National ASM and branch membership also required.

2016-2017 Eugene and Millicent Goldschmidt Graduate Student Award

Deadline: September 15, 2016

The Texas Branch of the American Society for Microbiology announces the 2016-17 Eugene and Millicent Goldschmidt Graduate Student Award for female graduate students studying microorganisms in their thesis research. There will be two awards of $9,000 given during the 2016-2017 academic year.

Scholarship applicants must be:

1. Female, U.S. citizen or permanent resident and not a previous recipient of the award
2. Member of the American Society for Microbiology and Texas Branch – American Society for Microbiology (Applicants can join both the national ASM and Texas Branch ASM via a link at: http://www.asm.org/index.php/membership/join-asm.html)
3. Show potential for a career in microbiology
4. Currently enrolled in an MS or PhD program and not defended their thesis at the time of award announcement in April 2017.
5. Per ASM definitions, the term “microorganisms” includes bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and fungi

Application package must include:

• Letter of application, electronic reprints of publications (if applicable), and CV from the candidate
• Description of current thesis research, career plans, and plans for use of the award funds to enhance your research and career
• At least two letters of support must be sent separately from the application directly to Dr. Ali Azghani at aazghani@uttyler.edu. One of these letters must be from the applicant’s current thesis advisor

Award Conditions:

The recipient will receive her award in two installments and will be required to submit a six-month progress report and final report to the Texas Branch ASM President. Receipt of the second installment is contingent upon receipt of a satisfactory progress report. In addition, the recipient will be required to make a scientific presentation of her work at one of the Texas Branch ASM Meetings within a year of receiving the award.

Application Process:

Applications must be sent electronically as PDF files to Dr. Ali Azghani, President of the ASM Texas Branch at aazghani@uttyler.edu.

The fall meeting for the Texas Branch American Society for Microbiology is scheduled for November 10-12, 2016.  It will be hosted at The University of Texas at Dallas.

Also, the Spring 2017 meeting has been scheduled for March 23-25, 2017 at TBarM.

Below are the 2016 Spring Meeting program and abstract book!

Download (PDF, 1.27MB)

Download (PDF, 949KB)

Download (PDF, 374KB)

Below are the award results from the Fall 2015 Texas Branch ASM meeting.  Congratulations to all that received awards!

AWARD RESULTS TEXAS ASM BRANCH FALL MEETING 2015 HUNTSVILLE, TX (SAM HOUSTON STATE UNIVERSITY)

SE SULKIN ORAL PRESENTATION – Medical Microbiology
(Award Sponsor: Texas ASM Branch)
1st place – $100 – Kayla Bounds, Texas Tech University, Abdul Hamood
2nd place – $50 – Tetiana Hutchison, Southern Methodist University, Robert Harrod

OB WILLIAMS – ORAL PRESENTATION – General Microbiology
(Award Sponsor: Texas ASM Branch)
1st place – $100 – Marinelle Rodrigues, University of Texas at Dallas, Kelli Palmer
2nd place – $50 – Michael Francis, Texas A&M, Joe Sorg

Joan Abramowitz Award UNDERGRADUATE MEDICAL MICROBIOLOGY POSTER PRESENTATION
(Award Sponsor: UT-Houston Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Graduate Program)
1st place – $100 – Luis Valencia, Texas A&M University, Sangeeta Khare
2nd place – $50 – Kyra Curtis, Baylor University, Diane Hartman

Joan Abramowitz Award UNDERGRADUATE MOLECULAR MICROBIOLOGY POSTER PRESENTATION
(Award Sponsor: UT-Houston Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Graduate Program)
1st place – $100 – Karthik Hullahalli, University of Texas at Dallas, Kelli Palmer
2nd place – $50 – Matthew Breuer, Sam Houston State University, Anne Gaillard
2nd place – $50 – Christina Koo, University of Texas at Arlington, Woo-Suk Chang

Sam Kaplan Award GRADUATE MOLECULAR MICROBIOLOGY POSTER PRESENTATION
(Award Sponsor: Texas ASM Branch)
1st place – $100 – Robert Fultz, Baylor College of Medicine, James Versalovic
2nd place – $50 – Akshaya Ravichandran, Texas A&M University, James Smith
3rd place – Cert – Hannah Adams, University of Texas at Dallas, Kelli Palmer

Sam Kaplan Award GRADUATE MEDICAL/ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY POSTER PRESENTATION
(Award Sponsor: Texas ASM Branch)
1st place – $100 – Pooja Bhardwaj, University of Texas At Dallas, Kelli Palmer
2nd place – $50 – Christina Morra, Baylor College of Medicine, James Versalovic
3rd place – Cert – Nymisha Avadhanam, University of Texas at Dallas, Juan González
3rd place – Cert – Mehul Jani, University of North Texas, Rajeev Azad

Download (PDF, 895KB)

The Texas Branch 2015 Fall Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology will be held at Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas during October 29-31. The deadline for the registration and abstract submission is midnight on Monday, October 5, 2015. Please visit the registration website (http://txasm.org/2015-texas-branch-fall-meeting-of-the-american-society-for-microbiology/) and complete the registration as well as abstract submission before the deadline.

We hope to see you soon at the meeting.

Organizing committee for the Texas ASM meeting, Fall 2015.

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!