The Annual Meeting in Los Angeles was a fabulous and much-needed opportunity to share our science and reconnect with our BPS community. There was great energy, from the talks to the poster sessions to the dance floor. As always, the Annual Meeting includes three meetings of the BPS Council, who are charged by you, its members, to set the vision for the Society. This year more than ever, the thoughtful perspectives and discussions of Council were much appreciated as BPS pursues its work to lead and promote biophysics for the benefit of humanity.
Joint Council 2025 opened on February 14 with a mix of joy and sadness as we took turns sharing something we were grateful for (primarily being at the meeting with friends and colleagues!) and a took a moment to acknowledge the recent loss of Council member Anita Niedziela-Majka and the devastation from the wildfires in the Los Angeles area.
The meeting continued on a somber note as we discussed the impact of the new US Presidential Administration’s Executive Orders (EOs) and federal actions on BPS members and the broader scientific community. The Department of Health and Human Services’ pause on communication and travel directly impacted the Annual Meeting since colleagues from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal agencies were unable to attend. Impacts of the EO on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), the Office of Management and Budget order outlining grant freezes, and the NIH indirect grant costs cap of 15% were also considered. DEI remains among the core values for BPS, and we plan to continue our work fostering a diverse and inclusive global community. The funding issues are in flux and will take time and monitoring to understand all the ramifications for our members and the Society.
Beyond sharing immediate impacts, we decided to focus on what we could do here and now to support members. To that end, soon to be President-Elect Karen Fleming and BPS Council members Theanne Griffith and Emmanuel Margeat volunteered to lead a panel discussion and attendee sharing session on Tuesday afternoon at the Annual Meeting. Within an hour of then–BPS-President Gabriela Popescu calling Joint Council to order, we had the framework for what would become the “BPS Emergency Town Hall—Impact of US Policies on Biophysics.” The goal of the presentation and discussion was to empower BPS members as private citizen scientists to advocate for science if you choose to do so (see www.biophysics.org/policy-advocacy/stay-informed/policy-issues for information). To help BPS with its advocacy efforts, we also seek to collect information on the impact of these policies on your science, institutions, and local economy: share your stories at [email protected].
Continuing to other topics, Council decided that maintaining industry representation is important to our mission (the passing of Niedziela-Majka left Council with no members from industry). So Council charged the 2024 Nominating Committee with identifying two candidates and adding a dedicated seat for a member from industry to the 2025 election ballot. We also received updates on the marketing, communications, and branding initiative from BPS Director of Marketing, Communications, and Outreach Elizabeth Vuong, and a financial report from BPS Treasurer Samantha Harris. We ended the first session of Joint Council by recognizing the excellent service of outgoing Council members Patricia Bassereau, Martin Gruebele, Syma Khalid, and Valeria Vásquez, as well as outgoing Past-President Taekjip Ha.
Saturday morning’s meeting began with a report from 2025 Annual Meeting Program Co-Chairs, Sudha Chakrapani and Christopher Yip. They talked about the process of developing the program, including the valuable contributions of the Subgroups during the 2024 Subgroup Chairs meeting. They shared that there were just over 4,000 people registered leading up to the meeting. However, they received quite a few late cancellations from speakers, and Dorothy Chaconas, BPS Director of Meetings and Exhibits, noted similar cancellations from attendees, due in no small part to the travel restrictions and funding concerns of federally employed and federally funded attendees. Although BPS was notified of most of these cancellations after the deadline, Council agreed to issue registration refunds to those who were prohibited from attending by their employer.
Ilya Levental, 2026 Annual Meeting Program Co-Chair along with Ariane Briegel, presented the nearly final program for BPS2026. He shared that they relied heavily on member-suggested sessions as well as input from the Program Committee and Council, and said he would be meeting with the Subgroup Chairs on the upcoming Tuesday for their feedback. Efforts are underway to streamline the process of receiving input from Subgroups and to better publicize the call to members for suggested sessions, to ensure that we incorporate both longstanding and emerging areas into the exciting science presented at our Annual Meeting!
BPS Secretary Teresa Giraldez followed the Annual Meeting topic with updates on Subgroups, including the status of the Subgroup Task Force activities. Results from the recent all-member survey on Subgroups will be reviewed by the Task Force and then shared at May Council. She also informed Council that the leaders of the Multiscale Genome Organization Subgroup were notified before the meeting that their Subgroup will be dissolved after the Annual Meeting due to the inability to maintain the required number of Regular and Early Career members established by the BPS bylaws.
New Council convened on Wednesday, February 19, and began with everyone sharing something about the meeting that was exciting for them. Several people commented on the outstanding lectures they attended, as well as the enthusiastic engagement of the students and early career attendees throughout the meeting. Then our first topic was the effort to support the BPS mission and our members in the face of everything that is going on around the world. We discussed the importance of telling stories that convey the impact of science and that humanize scientists, and ideas for incorporating this theme into BPS activities for the upcoming year and into programming for the 2026 Annual Meeting.
Padmini Rangamani, Jörg Enderlein, and Vasanthi Jayaraman, the Editors-in-Chief (EICs) of BPS’s three journals, along with William Wimley, Publications Chair, attended Council to report on our publishing program. Although all three journals experienced an increase in submissions in 2024, all the EICs continuously seek opportunities to improve the journals, grow submissions, and ensure that BPS publications are publishing high-quality research from our members and the biophysics community. Wimley highlighted how amazing and proactive the EICs are and flagged that Enderlein’s term is ending, with a search for his replacement currently underway. Council approved the addition of a new Associate Editor for Special Issues position for Biophysical Journal, with Tamar Schlick as the first person to fill the role, as well as approving candidates to fill Editorial Board Member vacancies.
We established the 2025 Nominating Committee during New Council, and Janice Robertson was approved as the chair of the Awards Committee. Other committee chair and member appointments will be confirmed at May Council. Members interested in serving on a BPS committee should submit the volunteer form at www.biophysics.org/about-bps/governance/committees.
Chakrapani and Yip joined Council to share feedback about the previous few days at the Annual Meeting. Speaker cancellations left gaps in several platform sessions. We discussed ideas for replacement speakers and will work with chairs and staff to identify a solution that will maximize speaking opportunities at future meetings.
We closed New Council with a discussion of the “Emergency Town Hall” and ideas for supporting members after the meeting. As noted above, we have built out a section on the BPS website with the resources from the town hall and opportunities for members to get involved and to share their stories and concerns. Throughout Council, we reaffirmed that BPS remains committed to our values: diversity of many kinds is the core of our identity and is our key strength that fosters scientific excellence, as shared in this column in the March issue of BPS Bulletin.
Overall, the Council meetings at the Annual Meeting were engaging and productive. The Annual Meeting itself was exciting and inspiring. We loved seeing everyone who attended and missed those who could not come. In these challenging times, our BPS community is more important than ever. If you have suggestions for ways we can support you or ideas you would like to share, please reach out to us at any time at [email protected] or [email protected].
—Lynmarie K. Thompson, President
—Jennifer Pesanelli, Executive Officer