Getting Started as a Group Leader panel

Written By Joanna Friesner, NAASC Executive Director

Panel Date: Monday, May 15 2023

Time: 9 am PDT, 12 pm EDT, 6 pm CEST

The NAASC Early Career Scholars Subcommittee (ECSS) are hosting an upcoming career development panel

  • Register by May 14th to be emailed the Zoom link.

  • You may submit an (optional) question for the panel when you register.

Panelists

  • Dr. Aman Husbands, Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, USA

  • Dr. Xue Pan, Assistant Professor in the Department of Cell and Systems Biology at the University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada

  • Dr. Carlos Ortiz-Ramírez, Assistant professor at the Cinvestav Research Institute, Mexico

Some discussion questions (you can submit your own when you register):

  • What was your biggest challenge starting your lab?

  • What is your approach to mentoring?

  • How do you foster your lab culture?

  • How do you manage your work/non-work life balance?

Dr. Aman Husbands

Aman Husbands is an Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He did his PhD in the lab of Patricia Springer at UC Riverside working on LBD transcription factors before doing a postdoc with Marja Timmermans at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory working on adaxial-abaxial leaf patterning. Aman set up his research group in January 2018 at Ohio State University, before moving across to the University of Pennsylvania. His work focuses on CLASS III HOMEODOMAIN LEUCINE ZIPPER (HD-ZIPIII) transcription factors and how they function in different contexts during plant development and evolution.

Dr. Xue Pan

Xue Pan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada. She did her PhD at the University of Alberta in the lab of Randall Weselake working on triacylglycerol biosynthesis in flaxseed before moving to UC Riverside for a postdoc with Zhenbiao Yang working on the function of membrane nanodomains in auxin signaling. In September 2022 Xue started her lab at the University of Toronto Scarborough where her lab studies lipid synthesis and signaling.

Dr. Carlos Ortiz-Ramírez

Carlos Ortiz-Ramírez is an Assistant professor at Cinvestav Research Institute, Mexico. He did his PhD in the lab of José Feijó at Gulbenkian Science Institute in Portugal working on gamete signaling during fertilization in Physcomitrium before doing a postdoc with Ken Birnbaum at NYU using scRNAseq to look at ground tissue specification in maize and Setaria roots. Carlos started his lab in January 2020 at Cinvestav. His group works on the regulation and evolution of cell identity in photosynthetic tissues using maize.

Joanna Friesner, NAASC Executive Director

Current Position: Executive Director, North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee (NAASC)

Education: PhD in Genetics, University of California, Davis

I completed a PhD in Genetics at UC Davis, USA, where I conducted early research into mechanisms of DNA double-strand break repair in Arabidopsis thaliana. Following this (2006) I began supporting the Arabidopsis community first as the Coordinator of the Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee (MASC), and then as the Executive Director of the North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee (NAASC), a non-profit charity registered in the US. Since 2006, I have led and supported various community activities via my support of the elected members of NAASC including serving as lead organizer for seven International Conferences on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR), and developing and implementing numerous NAASC activities (e.g., the International Arabidopsis Informatics Consortium, workshops, seminars, publications.) Supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the plant sciences has long been a key NAASC objective, with increased focus in the last 8 years, particularly due to support from the US National Science Foundation (NSF*) via the award “Research Coordination Network: Arabidopsis Research and Training for the 21st Century (ART-21)”.  NAASC has enabled participation in ICARs and other activities by about 100 members of under-represented groups in US STEM and 400+ early career researchers; organized more than a dozen professional and career development workshops, and led the writing of several publications, including this most recent guide on broadening impacts of plant science. Several years ago, I co-founded (with NAASC members Jennifer Nemhauser and Liz Haswell) the DiversifyPlantSci database (https://rdale1.shinyapps.io/diversifyplantsci/) to highlight diversity in the plant sciences community and to further increase diversity and inclusion. Recently I led organization of the first online ICAR (ICAR 2021-Virtual), postponed from 2020-Seattle due to Covid-19, and work with NAASC to develop plans for new activities to support the Arabidopsis community. I am now planning ICAR 2024-UC San Diego.

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