Schmidt-Nielsen Distinguished Mentor and Scientist Award: Fourteen nominations were received for the sixth Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen Distinguished Mentor and Scientist award. The Women in Physiology Committee reviewed the nominations and selected Brian R. Duling, University of Virginia Health Sciences Center as the 2009 awardee. Duling received an honorarium of $1,000, a plaque, and reimbursement of expenses to attend the EB 2009 meeting. Duling gave a talk on mentoring entitled: "Mentoring: A Fun, Collaborative Activity," and an article based on the lecture was published in August 2009 issue of The Physiologist.
Caroline tum Suden/Frances Hellebrandt Profes-sional Opportunity Awards: The Women in Physiology Committee received 90 applications for the 2009 Caroline tum Suden/Frances Hellebrandt Professional Opportunity Awards. The Committee was able to fund 34 tum Suden Awards and two Steven M. Horvath Awards, given to the top two underrepresented minority tum Suden Awardees.
EB Mentoring Workshop: The EB 2009 workshop was entitled, "Pathways to Leadership: Developing Critical Skills," chaired by Holly H. Brevig, Andrea L. del Tredici, and Barbara T. Alexander. The workshop was poorly attended, perhaps because it was not close to any other APS or ASPET programming sites and also due to an ASPET named lecture that was going on at the same time.
For EB 2010, the workshop organizers and chairs will be Francisco Andrade, Univ. of Kentucky, and Angela Grippo, Northern Illinois University. It will be entitled: "A Primer for the New PI: How to Herd Cats AND Keep Your Boss Happy." The participants will be made up of young investigators and more senior scientists: Jennifer L. Gooch, Emory Univ. ("Fresh Out Of The Box: Defining Who You Are"); Kristin Gosselink, Univ. of Texas, El Paso ("Managing Your Allowance: Startup, Release Time, Space"); A. Kim Johnson, Univ. of Iowa ("Running A Tight But Happy Ship"); and Stephanie W. Watts, Michigan State Univ. ("The Other Things You Do: Teaching And Service").
Women Serving on Committees/Sections: In reviewing the membership of the APS section advisory committees (SACs) and other Society committees, we found that the representation of women on the general Society committees was very good. However, in looking at the SACs, we found that the representation of women was poor in most. For example, in the largest section, Cardiovascular, there was one woman (8%) of 12 total members; in the Renal Section one woman (8%) of 12 members (however, the previous chair of the section was a woman); Environmental and Exercise Physiology Section had two women (12%) out of 17 members. On Council itself, there are only three women (25%) out of 12 representatives. These numbers may have changed after the recent section meetings at EB.
FASEB Excellence in Science Award: For the 2010 award, 40 applications were received, down from 52 in previous year. Susan Taylor, Univ. of California, San Diego, was selected as the 2010 award recipient. Since its inception, there have been 21 winners, only one was a primary APS member. Primary ASBMB winners number 14 of the 21. The Committee will continue to work with APS members to enhance their nomination packets. In addition, the Committee is discussing strategies to increase the number of APS women who are National Academy of Science members, as that is a critical element for successful candidates for this prestigious award.