Sandy Davidge
Sandy Davidge, PhD
SRI President, 2017-2018
Being the president of SRI is an honor, a privilege and a lot of work! My year may be most remembered as the inaugural year of our SRI band “The Featles”. However, I would like to first describe the year and begin by recognizing the dedication of the SRI staff (from EDI), led by Anne Krolikowski, as they worked tirelessly for our organization. Anne, Leah Miller, Morgan Derby and Michelle Holm (and most recently Debra Hangsterfer) each have support roles with our committees, which have grown to 12 working committees plus the executive committee (with the latter meeting by teleconference monthly). Thus, we have grown and evolved as a Society. Overall, SRI is thriving due to the leadership and commitment of prior Presidents and Council members along with the engagement of all SRI members.
I became the president of SRI for its 65th Anniversary, following the leadership of Yoel Sadovsky, who had established clear guidelines and committee structure within our governance that is critical for SRI activities throughout the year. At my first Council meeting, we refreshed the Strategic Plan for 2017-2020. With this refresh, we initiated a new Global Outreach Committee to continue to enhance and emphasize SRI’s role as an international society. In addition, we also resurrected a Government Affairs committee specifically to provide a mechanism for communication and advocacy for our United States based members.
There were a number of initiatives launched in my presidential year, with specific emphasis on supporting trainees and new investigators. This included the establishment of 50 SRI-sponsored trainee travel awards and providing SRI’s first Career Development Half Day at our Annual meeting. The latter was spear headed by Les Myatt (who we call SRI’s Obe-Won Kenobi), and led by Thomas Jansson with great success! We were also successful in obtaining Bayer funding to support 15 Innovative Grants for our members. We continued with our SRI grant awards for a new investigator and a bridge grant- with presentations by the recipients at a plenary session at the Annual Meeting. We also continued engagement with our sister societies and had joint symposia with SSR and ISSHP. Throughout the year, we worked on a diversity plan with Elizabeth Bonney who chaired the Career Development and Diversity Committee. In addition, we developed an acceptable loss policy for the society under the leadership of Ian Bird, our newly elected treasurer. We also hired a part-time fundraiser and Les Myatt created a new Development Committee.
Notably, I now realize that it is the first two years prior to the presidential year, that sets the stage for the Annual Meeting whereas the actual year of the presidency is focused on running SRI as a society. When I was elected in 2016, my first course of action was to identify my Program Director for the 2018 SRI meeting. I immediately turned to Marilyn Cipolla for many reasons. As a past SRI Council Member, Marilyn is an active member of SRI and we have a long history together having met in the early 1990’s when we were technicians and then graduate students at the University of Vermont. I was thrilled to work with Marilyn, a wonderful friend, who is very organized, logical, meets deadlines and was a strong advocate in support of our meeting theme- “Power of Collaboration”. For the 2018 meeting, we began planning in 2016 with invitations to two very distinguished lecturers- Drs. Randy Schekman and Ursula Kaiser, who both graciously accepted. Dr. Schekman, received the 2013 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine based on his work cell membrane vesicle trafficking. Dr. Kaiser, Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Hypertension at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is a clinician-scientist focusing on neuroendocrinology and reproductive endocrinology and had published on the benefit of team research. Both of our esteemed lecturers aligned well with our meeting theme as we were striving to weave the “Power of Collaboration” throughout the meeting. In keeping with our theme, we initiated a special lunchtime panel, incorporating our distinguished lecturers, along with members of our society in a panel session titled “How to Effectively Network and Collaborate Locally and Globally” that was moderated by Marilyn and Dr. Steve Mathews, past SRI Program Chair. As in recent years, the trainees organized Connection Corners, and for the first time, we had a table designated as “Meet the SRI Distinguished Speakers”. Marilyn and I were both delighted that our distinguished guests embraced the theme of the “Power of Collaboration” and participated throughout the meeting.
During my presidency, we formalized the Past Presidents’ Fund to sponsor the President’s New Investigator Plenary session with a past President as a co-moderator. I asked Jim Roberts to co-moderate this important part of the program as the past president from the 1997 SGI meeting in San Diego (and he was my postdoctoral supervisor/mentor). On a side note, Jim’s Program Director during his SRI presidency was Dr. Margaret McLaughlin, who was my PhD supervisor and mentor. Important to my President’s message, is that Jim and Margaret are a demonstration of how important mentors are and that their influence lasts a life time!
As this was a special year, being the 65th Anniversary of SRI, my President’s Address began with a toast (me with my Bud Light) to the Society. My message was that career paths are not always a straight line, mentors are important, SRI is our scientific home which it has been for me for 28 years, and there is power in collaboration. My speech highlighted that we wouldn’t be successful without our colleagues (networks like a cog and wheel with SRI at the center as our scientific home), our research team and family. Just after this presentation, it was an honor to present the Frederick Naftolin Award for Mentorship to Dr. Gautam Chaudhuri and the DeCherney SRI Lifetime Distinguished Service Award to Dr. John Challis. It was also a thrill to present the SRI Distinguished Scientist Award to Dr. Lucilla Poston and the President’s Achievement Award to Dr. Mana Parast who both gave brief scientific presentations.
A unique feature of our meeting (and a highlight!) was the introduction of an SRI Band composed of our members (In Training and Regular Members). Dr. Bill Pearce, spearheaded this concept and proceeded to recruit band members from our SRI membership with the result being- “The Featles”. We then needed to find a venue; which was resolved during the Program Committee Meeting held at the conference site in San Diego. As Marilyn Cipolla, Steve Mathews and I were eating at the closest restaurant to the Hilton, Joe’s Crab Shack, Steve suggested that this would be an ideal site for our 65th Anniversary Party. The end result was an amazing evening of comradery, networking, the introduction of a new younger vibrancy of the Society as we were all enthralled with the talent of “The Featles”! Band members included Bill Pearce, Jasmine Plows, Sam Mesiano, Phil Bennett, Jessica Hebert and Dave Wright, and they were amazing! Hopefully, a tradition that will continue. Overall, the meeting was a great success with excellent science, great networking and a general buzz that resonated throughout.
The final day of our Annual Meeting included a business meeting that we continue to evolve as a relevant meeting for the membership (plus we provided a hot breakfast as an incentive). The business meeting is an important mechanism for back and forth communication with our membership. We also had developed “annual reports” for our members that included an infograph for all attendees to the SRI meeting and a President’s Report that was distributed at the business meeting. The President’s Report included highlighting the benefit of SRI membership and specific activities at the SRI meeting for in training members and early career investigators.
In closing, we have a vibrant society that is our scientific home as we continue to grow and evolve with our vision in sight as “the premier international organization that leads outstanding multidisciplinary basic, translational, and clinical research and promotes mentorship and training in reproductive science and women's health.”