The Women in Physiology Committee has actively pursued new and diverse activities to fulfill its charge to mentor young scientists and provide incentives to them to present their work at APS meetings. APS Council approved a proposal from the Women in Physiology Committee to establish a Distinguished Mentor and Scientist Award named after former APS President Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen. The award recognizes Schmidt-Nielsen, the first woman President of the Society and a distinguished physiologist who has made significant contributions in her field. The award honors a member of the APS, of either gender, who is judged to have made significant contributions to physiological research and demonstrated dedication and commitment to excellence in training of young physiologists. The award will carry a $1,000 cash prize and a commemorative plaque to be presented at the Experimental Biology meeting. The awardee will present a lecture on mentoring at a luncheon held during the EB meeting from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm.

The Women in Physiology Committee is very pleased that the APS Mentoring Program is available to both female and male young scientists. This program is designed to provide advice, encouragement, support and networking opportunities for young scientists who are currently in training or have just started a new position in academe or industry. The APS Education Office has completely revised the APS Mentoring Program website, which is interactive and has many sources of information for young scientists at the formative stages of their careers as well as for senior physiologist mentors in the program. To assist APS Education Office in the matching of mentor and mentee, Women in Physiology committee members will review requests for a mentor and make recommendations on the pairing of mentor and mentee. The goal of the Women in Physiology Committee is to match mentor-mentees as soon as possible, thus, enhancing the value of the mentor-mentee relationship. This approach should also provide encouragement to mentor-mentees to meet directly at the Fall APS conferences and EB meeting. Student members of the APS should be encouraged to visit the APS Mentoring Program website and to join this program. We noted that requests for mentors are submitted year round from students of both genders. The Committee also highly commends Marsha Matyas and Melinda Lowy for their exceptional efforts in redesigning the website. Society members are encouraged to participate in the program as either mentor or mentee; applications are available from the Society's Education Officer, Marsha Matyas, and on the program website at http://www.the-aps.org/education/mentoringprogram.

The Women in Physiology once again planned and co-sponsored a workshop with ASPET Women in Pharmacology at EB03 on "Presentation Skills."  Two representatives from the Women in Physiology Committee (Carole Liedtke and Sinya Benyajati) and one from the Committee on Women in Pharmacology (Joan Lakoski) served as co-organizers. The workshop was designed to provide training for mentors and mentees of both genders on best practices for oral and poster presentations, interviewing skills and sharing science with the public. An audience of over 250 young and more senior scientists were able to gain valuable insight on the basics of presentation skills through oral presentations, case studies and a handout distributed at the session. Plans are underway to make the slides used by the panelists as well as the handout material available on the APS and ASPET websites. The Women in Physiology Committee has already taken the lead in planning and co-sponsoring a workshop with the ASPET Committee on Women in Pharmacology at EB04 on "Life After the PhD: Finding a Postdoctoral Fellowship."

The committee has the pleasure of serving as the review panel for the Caroline tum Suden/Frances Hellebrandt Professional Opportunity Awards. These awards provide monetary ($500) prizes and complimentary registration for 36 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows (of either gender) who give presentations at the EB meeting. The committee critically reviews abstracts submitted to EB and a supporting letter from the applicant in its selection process. Society members are strongly encouraged to remind their trainees of this opportunity.

As committee chair, Liedtke serves as the APS representative to the selection committee for this FASEB Excellence in Science Award. This prestigious award carries a $10,000 cash prize (supported by Eli Lily) and the opportunity to present a plenary talk at a FASEB-sponsored meeting. For EB03, the recipient was Joan Sietz, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University, an ASBMB member. The committee encourages all APS members to identify potential candidates for this prestigious award and, as one small step in this direction, to nominate women to give Distinguished Lectures organized by the various sections of APS. Less than 10% of the Distinguished Lecturers since 1995 have been women.

One of the charges to the Women in Physiology Committee is to encourage women to be active members of the APS. Serving on APS committees and APS Section Steering Committees are two avenues for fulfilling this leadership function. The committee is delighted that this year Helen Raybould joins two women currently serving on APS Council, Kim Barrett and Virginia Miller. Former Chair of the Women in Physiology Committee, Susan M. Barman, and current Chair, Carole M. Liedtke, published an update of the history of APS in the February, 2002 issue of The Physiologist. The article entitled "Growing Participation of Women in Physiology: 1987-2002" focused on the increasing role of women in the activities and governance of the APS. We are particularly grateful for the invaluable assistance of Linda Allen, Linda Dresser, Melinda Lowy and Margaret Reich for helping gather data for the article.

At its summer meeting, APS Council approved a motion to develop a set of core competencies, which all postdoctoral and graduate student trainees should learn. The Chairs of the Education, Women in Physiology, and Career Opportunities Committees and three representatives of the Association of Chairs of Departments of Physiology formed a task force to prepare a draft of the Professional Skills. The draft has been reviewed by members of the Education, Women in Physiology, and Career Opportunities Committees and presented to the Task Force for concluding discussion and revision. The work of this committee was considerably eased by the excellent assistance from the APS Education Office, in particular Lowy and Matyas. 

Carole M. Liedtke, Chair

Council Actions

• Council accepted the report of the Women in Physiology Committee.

• Council approved the funding for a lunch and lecture by the Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen Distinguished Mentor and Scientist Awardee at EB 2004.