Message from the President: <scp>ASLO</scp> in the Time of Covid‐19

These are strange times. I never would have imagined in a million years that I would be writing my first ASLO presidential message during a global pandemic and a powerful anti-racism movement, #BlackLivesMatter. 2020 has both made the world come to a grinding halt, in terms of disrupting global travel while changing basic human contact, and awoken it from its slumber to acknowledge, understand, and hopefully move to correct racial injustice and inequity. These are uncharted waters and these strange times call for deep change. But what does all this mean for the future of scientific societies like ASLO? This question weighs heavy on me; I will solicit collective insight from all of you throughout my term as we steer ASLO into the future. I was at a bit of a loss before writing this message. As such, I did my due diligence and systematically went back and read the first and last presidential messages in the Bulletin of every president since Jon Cole to draw inspiration. It was a fascinating time capsule to look at how all these fantastic individuals addressed issues for the society, what they accomplished, and how they saw ASLO's future. I encourage you to do the exercise over coffee some morning. You will learn some interesting aspects about the society and how it operates. We are a member driven society and this shines through on their reflections. Mike Pace's outgoing presidential message provides an accurate portrait of where ASLO is at the moment on a more practical side. I invite you to consult it; this message however will be a more personal reflection. The last four presidents all started their first presidential message from some exotic or meaningful place and referenced how excited they were to attend the upcoming ASLO meeting. Like most of you, for the last 3 months I have been sitting at my kitchen table which has acted as my makeshift office developing Zoom ass. I have tried to manage my teenagers, my graduate students, and my general professional responsibilities from home as best I can. Although I had thoughts of finally developing some meaningful hobbies and reading some books I have collected over the years, I can only say that I have resisted falling into the trap of watching Tiger King. I have actively tried to practice self-compassion and advocate this practice to all those surrounding and working with me. You simply cannot function normally and you must try to build in moments to recharge. But I think I cracked the first week I spent, about 35 h on Zoom for professional purposes. I am sure many of you have too. Are you kidding me? Is this the future? I sincerely hope not. Do not get me wrong, I could not imagine getting anything done during this time without Zoom. And it will be positive in the long run as we will reduce our C footprints by traveling less for certain types of meetings. But as the weeks passed and I systematically saw my students faces grow increasingly tired and weary while watching my own mullet grow on my computer screen, I hope that as we move into the future, we can provide the proper balance of using virtual and face-to-face meetings to connect, not only as scientists, but as humans. In fact, I will not lie, I cheated. When one of my graduate students, living alone at the time, expressed on week 6 that she could not take the isolation, I went to see her, and well, I illegally gave her a hug. The brief moment of human contact was enough to get her through the next couple of weeks to when her partner returned from a long stint in the field. To those who have been alone during these strange times, I send you a BIG genuine hug. You can pick it up next time we are at a meeting together. That is a guarantee. In terms of expressing my excitement of attending an upcoming ASLO meeting, as we all know our joint ASLO-SFS meeting in Madison was canceled due to Covid-19. This was of course a great disappointment to many of us as it was going to be a wonderful meeting with over 1500 abstract submissions. I had two students slated to present for their very first time and there is always great pride in watching one's student present their work at an international meeting. They all work so hard and this is such a pivotal moment in their professional development. I was sad for them and for all the students slated to present their work. I have also never been to Madison. It is supposedly a wonderful town and I looked forward to visiting the Center for Limnology, such an iconic place for the study of inland waters with so many great people. Steve Carpenter and Nancy Grimm were the organizing co-chairs; given their scientific excellence, deep knowledge, and generous human spirit; it was certainly going to be terrific meeting scientifically and a lot of fun. I thank them and the organizing committee for their hard work. I will not be attending an ASLO meeting until I am a year into my presidency. We managed to postpone the meeting in La Palma Mallorca until late June 2021. This was done rather intentionally. Originally slated for February, peak flu season, and with so many unknowns, we thought that it would have a better chance of being held at that time. ASLO, like all scientific societies, invests heavily in its meeting preparation and conferences are an important part of society functioning. It is quite an effort that typically begins 2 yr (or more) before the actual meeting takes place. Since we have invested so much in the preparations already, our next meeting will be continued as planned, just a few months later. I wish to thank Nona Agawin, Iris Hendriks, and Eva Sintes who are the organizing co-chairs for the meeting and Nona in particular for her fantastic energy as well as suggesting and helping to reschedule the event. Of course, this whole pandemic situation has made us rethink the future of meetings. We have for a long time wanted to reduce our carbon footprints and hold more events virtually. The time is now. We do tend to travel too much. Attending a conference is very expensive and it is often difficult for people with young families, with disabilities, or restricted from travel for other reasons. Having more virtual options will make it a more inclusive process and inclusivity is a core ASLO value. Scientific conferences are of course an interesting travel choice. One could ask what is their purpose? In the purest sense, I suppose it is to share your science with others, learn from their on-going work to rapidly expand your own knowledge, find out about the latest technologies and methods, and try to foster collaborations through networking. One could also argue that all this could be achieved virtually. We are more networked then ever (too networked perhaps, where connections are numerous, but associations weak) and we can share information openly and access it relatively easily (even from our kitchen table). I attended a very successful virtual meeting (3 half days), where I experienced some aspects of this. And I have heard from others their general positive experiences of virtual meetings, with large attendances, with ongoing chats that solicited more questions than usual among many other positive outcomes. However, I have to confess, the virtual happy hour was a bit of a bust. It was pleasant enough, but I cannot imagine any serious scientific debate or any of those spontaneous events that result in a moment of deep connection and joy that you experience, be you introvert or extravert when you are face-to-face in some new location. Scientific meetings are a break from routine, and honestly a break. A chance to celebrate your achievements and hard work with colleagues young and more experienced, from everywhere and to be inspired by thought-provoking plenaries, award talks, and terrific sessions. It is a chance to meet your science crush, someone you have admired through the literature and cannot wait to meet in person. There is something about collectively being in the same place, caring about the same things—hundreds of people caring about water—the energy and charge of togetherness with purpose, which takes us out of the isolation we often feel spending hours alone in our offices. It is a chance to recharge our batteries and be inspired to move on to the next steps of our own careers. We all have conference stories. I will share the one that marked me in my early career. It was my very first scientific meeting, ASLO 1997 in Santa Fe, which I attended as a Ph.D. student. At that meeting, the Citation of Scientific Excellence Award was being given posthumously to Robert H. Peters and received by his partner, Antonella Cattaneo, an accomplished limnologist herself. Rob was a professor at McGill University and one of the founders of comparative limnology. He was my undergraduate advisor, but I had no clue of his prominence at the time that only came later and most vividly at that ASLO meeting when we were marking a life in science too short lived. After the award, there was a dinner in Rob's honor. The magical moment came later in the evening when John Lehman entered the restaurant and bought the 20 or 30 of us present a round of Scotch. John and Rob had ongoing debates in the literature about scientific reductionism vs. holism each standing firmly in their own camps. Defending their viewpoints was at times pretty cutting, but their arguments focused on the science and made you think. John had us all raise glass in honor of Rob, thanked him for the thought-provoking exchanges throughout the years, and expressed how much he was going to miss him. I will never forget that moment and how it made me feel about science and that the pursuit of excellence is through thoughtful challenge. I cannot imagine the authenticity and power of that moment in virtual space. We have certainly been talking about the future of meetings on the ASLO board. We need to be greener, more responsible, and more inclusive. We plan to provide virtual options in our upcoming meetings so that those with constraints or who prefer not to travel can participate. We also plan to make the hands-on experience more meaningful. There are many tools and practices to be more participatory, engaging, and even more fun! We are also considering different ways of hosting them to reduce travel while connecting broadly. Please share your thoughts, reflections, and experiences with our meetings committee, co-chaired by Beth Stauffer ([email protected]) and Kim Wickland ([email protected]), including what you have enjoyed in virtual space, to help ASLO serve you more holistically through our meetings in the future. With your shared collective experiences, we can better imagine this future of hybrid meetings together for ASLO. And now some gratitude. I enter this presidency as the first Gen X, the 6th woman, and as one of the few non-U.S. citizens to lead the society. It is an honor to serve and I thank you for your trust. I have a tough act to follow in Mike Pace. Mike is not only a superb scientist with a great breadth of knowledge, but he is a thoughtful, calm, and hardworking leader. He managed some rather difficult situations as president and I would like to thank him for his service. We managed in the last months to imagine the next steps for ASLO to set a strategic framework, so I look forward to working with him and the rest of the board toward this aim. Four fabulous women are rotating off the board: Linda Duguay, our past president; Ngozi Oguguah, our student board member and our first from the African continent; Diana Varela, Chair of our mentoring committee; and Kim Wickland who wore many hats as Awards committee Chair and now Meetings committee CoChair. I thank all of you for your service, thoughtful perspectives, and hard work; it has been such a pleasure to work with all of you. I will miss you very much! These are strange times. Covid-19 have taken the lives of thousands of people, disrupted people's livelihoods, and will have long-standing repercussions on the economy. All of us have been affected. I wish to send my sincerest condolences to those of you who have lost family members or loved ones through this pandemic. I am concerned for our early career researchers, students, and members with young families. This has been particularly tough on many of you. Let us as a scientific society be committed to helping to support and protect our most vulnerable, through our actions and words. Let us be gentle with ourselves and with each other as we move into the near future. My hope is we can emerge from these strange times by concretely moving toward a greener and bluer economy. We must also aspire to greater racial equity. ASLO will be committed to this; we are establishing a racial relations task force and are developing some concrete actions to help support and better connect our BIPOC members. By the time this is published, I hope some of these actions will be in place. Please see the Viewpoint from our thoughtful student board member Camille Gaynus in this issue on this topic, as well as an article by Ben Cuker, who has headed the ASLOMP program from many years. Finally, I did manage to leave my kitchen table and write this message from a special place: Lac Gustave a small headwater lake just north of Montreal where we have our family cottage. I will end my message with some Advice from a Lake. it is a bit sappy, inspirational card greeting, but honestly I like it and I think in these strange times, we could all benefit from it. Advice from a Lake: Be clear. Make positive ripples. Look beneath the surface. Stay calm. Shore up friendships. Take time to reflect. Be full of life!

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