Reminder: Nominations for RosEXEC close this coming Monday (9 Nov).

Full details in previous message (below).

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Hi everyone,

As another successful year winds down, RosEXEC (the U.S. Rosaceae Genomics, Genetics, and Breeding Executive Committee,) is ready for another round of elections to renew membership for 2016. In short, RosEXEC helps coordinate research initiatives in the U.S. Rosaceae Genomics, Genetics, and Breeding community (www.rosaceae.org/community/us_rosexec).

We need nominations! We are looking to add five new U.S. members (three-year terms) and two new international liaisons (two-year terms). If you are willing to join or know of someone else who would be great for RosEXEC participation, please email me at cpeace@wsu.edu the following info for each nominated candidate prior to Monday 9 November:

· name

· CV (short version)

· brief statement (100-word max) on proposed contributions to the RosEXEC mission

Just names are good enough to get us moving – although if you are nominating someone else, it’s best if you have checked their interest first. I can contact them soon after to obtain the CV and brief statement.

Past service: Five U.S. people will be rotating off as of Jan 2016, after three-year terms: Stan Hokanson, Des Layne, Judson Ward, Michael Wisniewski, and JD Swanson who served as Chair in 2014. Two international liaisons will also be rotating off after two-year terms: Fabrizio Costa and Michael Considine. Thanks to all of these RosEXEC members for their service! As a reward, these people get a one-year respite (unless voted in as the 2016 Secretary) and so are not eligible for immediate re-election. However, those who rotated off in prior years are allowed to rejoin.

Current members continuing into 2016 are Gayle Volk (Chair -> Past Chair), Cameron Peace (Vice chair -> Chair), Ksenija Gasic (Secretary -> Vice Chair), Gina Fernandez, Briana Gross, Duke Lane, Greg Reighard, Richard Bell, Jill Bushakra, Chunxian Chen, Amy Iezzoni, Kenong Xu, Michael Dossett (Intl), Riccardo Velasco (Intl), and Dorrie Main (ex officio).

Diversity is important to any committee – we aim to represent (1) roughly equally the various Rosaceae crop production and research regions of the U.S., (2) at least a couple members each of university, government / USDA-ARS, and industry, (3) rosoid, pome, and stone fruit research focuses, roughly equally, and (4) various parts of the rest of the research world. Current members continuing into 2016 add up to:

U.S. regions: 4 south, 4 east, and 4 west – well balanced

Institutions: 7 university, 3 government, 1 industry – need more industry and govt

Crop groups: 2.1 rosoid, 4.3 pome, and 5.6 stone – need more rosoid then pome

International: 1 Canada, 1 Europe – need Asia, S. Africa, Down Under, S. America

The only mandate for new 2016 membership is that one U.S. member must be industry. Details above are just a guide for areas most needing representation. Another area that would be particularly useful to have represented is bioinformatics (in Rosaceae), given RosEXEC’s recently acquired new role as steering committee for the GDR.

Our next in-person, open meeting will be within the Plant & Animal Genome (PAG) Conference in San Diego, CA at the usual time (Sunday 8-10 am). All welcome! Specific details will be distributed closer to the event.

Timeline:

Nominations to me by Monday 9 November

Voting will be carried out 16 Nov to 18 Dec (U.S. researchers [and any other U.S.-based interested parties] may cast votes)

New members will be announced by Christmas

Secretary nominations and election (internal RosEXEC process) by the PAG meeting

Regards,

Cameron Peace

2015 RosEXEC Vice Chair and Membership Subcommittee Chair