Executive meetings were called in October, January, February, March, and at the beginning and end of May. There was almost daily correspondence on ISOP matters from September, with the exception of holidays. We had a busy year on all the committees. I thank all those who continue to volunteer on ISOP committees and on the executive each year. I have summarised below the conversations and minutes of meetings through the year.
Several changes were made to the executive committees due to retirements and bylaws changes at the annual business meeting in Seattle. These included extensions of several months to certain positions to bridge the gap until the elections this June 2025. Several committee chairs are appointed by the President or by the executive and these positions were filled.
1. Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology report from the Editor-in-Chief (J. Dacks)
The JEM Editor-in-Chief presented an overview of the journal metrics in January as Joel began his term at the Journal. His plan is not to focus on impact factor but on other aspects of the journal. These were proposed as:
- Adjust editorial board and board of reviewers annually
- LLM content policy
- Newsletters and editorials
- Attend by invitation to the conference in Delhi to connect with the Indian ciliate community
- Invited Reviews: ISOP 2024 symposium reviews and a community paper on protist culturing
- “From the archives” series
- Not to compete with similar journals but to increase submissions, seek better papers, with more ciliate and parasitology papers.
2. Systematics and Nomenclature Committee (A. Simpson)
We received regular updates from Alastair about progress on the revision of the classification.
3. Nominating Committee (E. Yazaki)
We thank Euki for the time spent on this committee, which is demanding. Nominations were received for the open positions and will be brought for a vote by members in June.
4. Historian (R. Snyder)
Our historian is retiring, and we thank Richard for his years in this responsibility. [The archives are in the Albin O. Kuhn Library at the University of Maryland’s Baltimore County campus, in Special Collections, under the Center for Biological Sciences Archives: https://library.umbc.edu/speccoll/findingaids/coll013.php]. Our new candidate is Tsetso Bachvaroff who is at the University of Maryland.
5. Constitution committee
Graham Clark has retired from this position after many years, and we thank him for his years of service. Alex Tice (Texas Tech) was appointed as the new chair of this committee.
6. Communications committee (T. Pánek)
The committee, chaired by our Executive Secretary, revived the ISOP Newsletter. Issues were produced by the committee in November, February, and June. These have been popular and informative. We thank Tomáš for initiating this and assembling an enthusiastic team.
Tomáš is planning a mentorship program for junior protistologists starting with the Prague 2026 conference.
7. Awards committee (J. del Campo)
A detailed report in January summarised the changes this year subsequent to changes in our bylaws. $45,000 USD was made available for the student travel awards this year. We made a change to the responsibility of the committee that had been approved in the new bylaws last summer. Namely, a motion was approved to move the responsibility for In Memoriam and Honorary members from this committee to the Past-President.
We also discussed providing more awards from the Society.
An ad hoc committee (L. Eme, J. del Campo, J. Wideman, S. Adl) discussed potential new awards. One new award modelled after the Hutner award, and a change to another, were approved by the executive.
The John O. Corliss Ciliate Systematics Award
This award has not been given for a few years. The motion to approve a rewording to expand the award to protists was approved. New terms of reference for the award were presented to the executive.
NOTE: The endowed fund for the Corliss award came from a group of his former graduate students, headed up by Drs. Eugene W. McArdle and Margaret Dysart de la Torre. “A cash prize is presented to a young protozoologist for what is judged to be the most meritorious publication in ciliate systematics during a given year. Members of all sections of the Society who are 35 years of age and under, or over 35 and within five years of the Ph.D. or equivalent terminal degree, are eligible for the award. Manuscripts to be considered may be of any length and published in any appropriate journal. However, the award will be restricted to sole authorship papers or multiple authorship manuscripts where the nominee is the senior author and can be clearly identified as the principal contributor.”
New award
To be named after an early protistologist, this award is given annually to recognise one person for a body of work that contributed significantly to shaping the discipline of protistology. In choosing candidates, the committee will consider:
- persons at the rank of Professor or equivalent, at least 15 years beyond their PhD,
- for publications that have significantly impacted one or several aspects of protistology,
- supported by numerous citations, and outstanding research or intellectual contributions.
- The committee will maintain a short list of outstanding protistologists, revised annually, from
which a candidate is chosen.
8. Program committee (M. Dunthorn)
ICOP Seoul 2025:
We approved a loan to be reimbursed one month after the conference ($50,000 for downpayments for venues and meeting costs). The Moore Foundation provided $10,000 for which we are immensely grateful. Attendance appeared to be lower than expected, with few Chinese registrations despite their large membership as an affiliate society.
Sina visited several potential venue sites in Prague for 2026, Julius Lukeš and Tomáš Pánek are negotiating with hotels about prices that will be widely acceptable and affordable.
ECOP/ISOP 2027 meeting venue was changed from Cyprus to Canterbury (UK) due to costs, but continues to be organised by Anastasios Tsaousis. We agreed to explore holding an ISOP 2028 meeting in Mexico City or somewhere in South America. The aim will be to have it accessible to local students. Pending the geopolitical situation, China could also be considered as an option.
We are grateful for Micah’s continued management of this important committee.
9. Image Repository Committee (G. Langlois)
Sina Adl provided links to populate the society web page with image databases. There are archived images from D Patterson that the society has access to; without copyright permission, we cannot do much with these. The images could be moved to a modern platform if permission is granted. There is $20,000 available for the committee to improve the accessibility of the diverse image resources. Different platforms use varied and older clade names and classification systems.
10. Membership Secretary (G. Langlois)
We continue to have recurring membership issues, with failed payments and with updated lists, but Gaytha has been in contact with Wiley. There was discussion that Wiley is probably in breach of contract due to its poor management of the membership list. Our membership continues to decrease, but e-mail lists from affiliate societies would expand our reach in communications and advertising conferences.
11. Affiliate Societies (A. Espinosa)
Membership fee structure, and our engagement with affiliate societies was discussed over several meetings since Winter 2024 and this year. We continued the discussion on affiliate societies from last year that was initiated by President-elect Sina Adl. A new fee structure was approved by the executive, which will need to be put to a vote at the business meeting in Seoul. Various scenarios for both the fee structure and affiliate-member-benefits were discussed.
We approved a flat fee per affiliate society of $200 per year. This fee entitles affiliate joint members to receive discounted fees for scientific meetings, and to receive the Society’s newsletter and updates on the status and outcomes of the jointly held activities by the Society and the affiliate. Modifications to the bylaws to accommodate these were brought forth by Avelina.
12. Business Advisory Committee (M. Leger)
The business advisory committee was reconstituted and led by Michelle Leger. A database was populated with past data on memberships, which can be expanded upon. Discussions were initiated regarding membership trends and ideas towards a strategic plan for the Society. The President formed an ad hoc strategic planning committee to continue discussion of the several ideas generated from Michelle’s efforts and discussions.
