Conference: FASEB Yeast Chromosome and Cell Cycle Conference 2024

This award is for support of the FASEB Yeast Chromosome and Cell Cycle Conference, to be held June 23-27 2024 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. This is a well-established conference that has occurred biennially for the past 30 years and, while it focuses on one of the most well-understood model systems, budding and fission yeasts, it is notable for continuing to push the conceptual and technological boundaries in this field, even as study in other systems advance. The meeting will include 8 plenary sessions, each of which will have 5-8 20 minute presentations. Approximately two-thirds of the speakers are by invitation, and the remainder will be selected from contributed abstracts, with an emphasis on early career scientists. In addition, nearly all attendees giving posters will also present short Poster Primer talks, introducing their poster topics, and themselves, to the other participants. This meeting will have attendees representing all career stages, from students to established investigators, with numerous activities to facilitate networking. The organizing committee will make a special effort to provide plenary speaking opportunities to diverse junior scientists as well. Notably, all NSF funds will be used to support participation by trainees and young investigators, with an emphasis on those from historically underrepresented groups as well as those with financial need. The conference program features 85% of speakers that have not presented in the past 5 years (though many high-profile, senior researchers in the field will chair sessions and stimulate discussion. Over half the speakers will be female, and ~20% of speakers will be from groups historically underrepresented in STEM. The conference focuses on topics of broad interest in biological sciences, notably "Chromatin and Nuclear Organization", "Cell Cycle Regulation", "Chromosome Duplication", "Telomeres and Double-strand Break Repair", "Recombination and Genome Stability", "Genome Evolution", "Dynamics of Chromosome Structure", and "Chromosome Segregation Mechanisms". Sessions will also include paired mentor/mentee talks at the beginning of the session. In addition, a "Meet the Expert" and a Career Development session will be held early in the conference in which senior speakers are assigned to tables where more junior participants join them for informal discussions to encourage and help early-career scientists progress in this field. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.