Message from the President: <scp>ASLO</scp>—A Generous Society

Have you ever asked the question, what does it mean to be an ASLO member? There are of course many ways to consider this question. More inwardly, one could ask, what is in it for me? More outwardly, one could ask, what do we do for others? How do we serve our membership in general or try to serve those who are perhaps in need of some help? What type of scientific society is ASLO? I think it is a very generous one! Let me share with you why I think that is. Like many scientific societies, we provide discounts to our members to attend our conferences, access to our bulletin, and soon all our journals, as well as access to the online directory to our members. But beyond these typical offerings, there are a number of other services we offer to our members as well. This includes substantial discounts to publishing in our journals, L&O, L&O Methods, and L&O Letters; free opportunity to publish thoughts or ideas in the L&O Bulletin; as well as travel awards to student and early career researchers to help offset costs to attend our meetings. At meetings, we provide a number of different professional development opportunities: over 150 workshops at our meetings since 2014 alone! Many have focused on scientific communication with some of the world's leading experts; these include Nancy Baron, Randy Olson, Brian Palermo, Richard Harris, and Dan Kahan. We have held several instructional workshops on publishing, reviewing, grant writing, networking, and leadership thanks to the time offered by experienced ASLO members and those who are editors. Ben Cuker (Professor of Marine and Environmental Studies, Hampton University) has run the ASLO Multicultural Program (ASLOMP), offering training in the aquatic sciences and the opportunity to present at an ASLO conference to a culturally diverse group of undergraduate and graduate students since 1990. Other more recent initiatives providing professional development opportunities include the Limnology and Oceanography research exchange (LOREX) program fostering international collaborations for students, the Raelyn Cole fellowship for experience in editing for early career researchers, as well as the scientific communication internships. There are also the Global Outreach initiatives, our numerous awards, and the ASLO Fellows Program. Albeit a relatively small society with a limited but VERY devoted staff, ASLO works hard for its members!! Generosity, however, comes in many different ways. One element of generosity I want to raise is those special, deliberate decisions made, usually driven by our thoughtful membership that makes me so proud to be part of ASLO. Between 2010 and 2013, I served as a member at large on the ASLO board where I had the pleasure of overlapping with Deidre Gibson. Deidre is an oceanographer interested in trophic ecology of zooplankton and Chair of the Department of Marine and Environmental Science at Hampton University, an HBCU (Historically Black College and University) in Virginia, recognized as a leader in producing top marine science B.Sc. graduates in the U.S. She was the first African American to serve on the ASLO board, as a member at large, and directs several NSF and NOAA funded programs that promote diversity in the marine sciences. Now, not only is Deidre a complete Rockstar, she is a straight shooter who gets things done, and is also very, very funny, and kind. Deidre was one of the organizing cochairs and persons who initiated bringing the 2013 Aquatic Science Meeting to New Orleans, Louisiana. ASLO had not held a meeting in New Orleans since the early 1990s. At that meeting, Deidre recounted how the meeting came to be. After the devastating passing of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Deidre, a native of New Orleans, had volunteered with Habitat for Humanity in 2007, with a colleague from VIMS, and some classmates from UW, to help reconstruct the city. While she was hammering away, building homes in Musicians' Village, she was wondering, what more could she do to help? What could she bring to NOLA that could contribute to New Orleans in its time of need? She, and her VIMS colleague, came up with the idea of hosting an ASLO meeting to help support the local economy, and to showcase the rich cultural history of this iconic place as well as educate on the local environment and all of the factors that contributed to the impact of Katrina. But the icing on the cake was that Deidre's mom, Sandra Gibson, was on the local organizing committee! This woman was full of life and helped make the meeting warm, fun, and meaningful! What a terrific meeting—so much was shared about the rich traditions of this fabulous city and the purpose of bringing the meeting to NOLA, in order to collectively contribute after Hurricane Katrina, was incredibly powerful and thoughtful! Fast forward to 2017, where Hurricane Maria caused devastation to the island of Puerto Rico. ASLO had held a very successful meeting there in 2011, but felt after Maria, that again it should give back. So, in 2019 ASLO's Aquatic Science Meeting returned, to San Juan, deliberately, to learn, contribute, and support. The Planet Water meeting was another success thanks to the organizing cochairs John Downing (Director, Minnesota Sea Grant, University of Minnesota Duluth) and Deborah Bronk (President and CEO, Bigelow Laboratory of Ocean Sciences), as well as a diverse scientific steering committee, and local contributions from Ruperto Chaparro Serran (Director, Puerto Rico Sea Grant). Beyond the excellent science at that meeting, several plenaries were from the island, presenting on the impacts of the hurricane on the coast as well as the spirit, resolve, and community support of the charming people. Check out ASLO's YouTube channel to watch these great talks: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgP6ugCKy2c61lIO948wma3NKVs83YxO9. The meeting celebrated the cultural richness of the island, including salsa dancing lessons to live music, supporting local artists. There were many opportunities to volunteer to help rebuild and contribute to the ongoing need to clean-up after the hurricane. This included volunteering for Habitat for Humanity among other activities. Tiara Moore (University of Washington and The Nature Conservancy of Seattle), student representative of the scientific organizing committee at the time, led an initiative whereby student volunteers from the meeting spent an afternoon collecting garbage and debris from the beach. Thanks to their efforts, they collected over 200 lbs or 91 kg (or 14.3 stones) worth of trash (Fig. 1), helping to leave Puerto Rico in a better state then when we came! In order to further support members' attendance at this meeting, ASLO provided $112,000 in funding to assist student and early career member travel to Puerto Rico as well as over $100,000 in reduction in registration costs to student researchers and scientists from the Island itself and US Virgin Islands which were also very badly hit during the storm. Overall, there were over $500,000 in subsidies to this meeting to support activities and opportunities for members. In fact, all ASLO meetings are heavily subsidized making ASLO an especially generous society. Supporting the arts is another way ASLO gives back. Some examples of conference logos that were commissioned to local artists of the 2018 and 2006 summer meetings in Victoria, BC, and the 2013 meeting in New Orleans, LA are shown in Fig. 2. Peter Williams (School of Ocean Science, Bangor University, UK) has been a strong advocate of promoting arts in science exhibits at various ASLO meetings including the art exhibit in Honolulu 2017 entitled Plankton: The Bizarre and the Beautiful—Ernst Haeckel, his Art, the HMS Challenger Expedition, and the Glass Models of the Blaschkas. This exhibit included a collection of intricate lithographs of the renowned 19th century biologist and illustrator Ernst Haeckel, highlighting the artistry of naturalists. Recent efforts to support artists attending meeting and promoting art science initiatives, spearheaded through the vision and efforts of current board member Ajit Subramaniam (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, New York), have enabled ASLO to offer travel grants to artists from around the world to attend our meetings and share their passion about water. “WaterMarks: Where Art Meets Science” had its debut at the Water Connects meeting in Victoria 2018; Lauren Elder (Lauren Elder Studio, Oakland CA) and Liz Miller (Concordia University, Montreal) carried the tradition and coordinated the participation of local Puerto Rican artists during the week-long series of workshops at our Planet Water meeting. ASLO is a very generous society—in so many ways. I am inspired and so grateful to all the beautiful people who contribute to make our society such a giving one. I have only mentioned a few examples here, but there are so many more! I am constantly blown away! Thank you for your precious time, your light, boundless energy, passion, willingness to share, and all your creativity for the promotion of the aquatic sciences.

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