Happy Summer, ASPO!

Happy Summer, ASPO!

I wanted to start out by telling you how excited I am to be your president for the next two years. ASPO has always been an organization that has meant a lot to me, because of the science it has exposed me to and the networks it has helped me develop. I know I hear similar things from many of you, and our past president Peter Kanetsky outlined this nicely in his recent presidential address. I am honored to be helping to support that legacy and look forward to continuing to help ASPO sustain its mission of fostering “the development of investigators and other professionals involved in cancer prevention and control, and the exchange and translation of scientific information to reduce cancer burden.” My priorities for the next year are to develop a plan for ongoing management of ASPO, increase the activity and visibility of our communication channels (i.e., Twitter, ASPO pages in CEBP, website, and Facebook page), and to develop a plan to increase membership. I welcome your input on ASPO’s direction and activities over the next two years. I will be periodically posting blogs on the website to keep you updated on ASPO activities. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter (k_basenengquist), comment on the blog post, or send me an email at [email protected].

I’m still coming off the high of the recent ASPO meeting. Many thanks to Jasmin Tiro and Hazel Nichols for their leadership of the program committee, and to all the program committee members for their hard work in putting a great program together. The program evaluation indicated that 94% thought the meeting was excellent or above average. We are now in the midst of planning for the 2020 meeting in Tucson, with the program committee ably led by Drs. Kate Weaver and Tim Rebbeck.  They just held the first program committee about a week ago, and discussed some great ideas for symposium topics. If you have ideas for the meeting that you’d like to share with the program committee, do so as soon as possible – they have to get much of the program planned before the middle of July so that we can put in the NCI conference grant. The program committee members are Tomi Akinyemiju, Amit Algotar, Hoda Badr, Michele Cote, Tracy Crane, Carolyn Fang, Erin Kent, Lorna McNeill, Sandi Pruitt, Benjamin Rybicki, Stephanie Schmit, Alexandra White and Amy Trentham-Dietz.

Thanks for reading. I look forward to working with you over the next two years!