OBJECTIVE: The OEB Seminar committee's goal is to select scientists reflecting the range of scientific breadth in the community, whose visit and seminar will be engaging and impactful. Our speakers will represent diverse genders, ethnicities, races, life experiences and career stages.
CONSIDERATIONS: Because our objective is to create a seminar series with broad representation, we do not use a numerical scoring system to rank or select speakers. Instead, we use a spreadsheet that captures the speaker and host consideration. We encourage people or groups of people to nominate multiple speakers as one nomination may be a better fit in a particular year. Here are the categories we look at in reviewing the candidates.
Speaker considerations
- Potential quality of the seminar – We strive for nominees whose quality of recent publications is excellent and who are known to give engaging seminars that would appeal broadly to our community.
- Potential for engagement with students and faculty during the visit (outside the seminar) - The seminar is only one hour of the visit. Other people in the community should be interested in meeting with the speaker. What science and life experiences does the speaker offer to the community (e.g. past NSF program director or subject of a Story Collider podcast)? The visit could be part of a current or planned research collaboration. Please let us know
- Speakers which will reach beyond the OEB community – Stronger consideration will be given to speakers that draw other members of the UMass community to our seminars.
- Speakers that are new or relatively unknown to the OEB community – We encourage the nomination of Amherst area researchers that are new to or wish to collaborate with members of the OEB community including; Assistant Professors through the Five Colleges, Adjunct Faculty, and scientists in non-profit, government or industry positions.
- Ethnic and racial diversity – Many ethnic and racial groups are underrepresented in fields related to OEB. We seek to provide perspectives from diverse speakers to increase representation and awareness among our community.
- Gender – In recent years, a similar number of OEB seminar speakers have identified as female or male. We seek nominations across the gender spectrum that have experiences and perspectives related to gender to share with the community.
- Career stage – We select speakers from a diversity of career stages and scientific experiences.
- Postdoctoral Fellows - A seminar date each semester is reserved for postdoctoral fellows from OEB-related research groups. We encourage self-nominations by postdocs or nominations from the related PI (after discussion with the postdoc).
- UMass Pathways for Increasing Equity and Inclusion in Faculty Recruitment program – This program has two categories, a tenure-track and Pathways Fellows. Consideration will be given to nominees who are exceptional candidates for these programs (https://www.umass.edu/provost/resources/all-resources/academic-personnel/faculty-hiring/faculty-search-activities-guide#ui-id-49). These nominations are made through departments, so first check in with your department committee to see if the speaker would be an excellent candidate.
- Seminar Topic - We strive to develop a seminar series that reflects the range of scientific interests in the program. Thus, nominees within a specific topic area may be evaluated as a group to determine the best fit for a particular year, but more than one nominee in a research area may be selected if they a good fit with other criteria.
- Ability of the speaker to travel - We consider nominations for people who may only be able to give a remote seminar due to health, family, or other travel constraints.
- Travel Cost - We often only have enough funds in the OEB seminar budget to fly in 2 or 3 speakers each semester. Longer drive ins where the mileage reimbursement may approach or exceed flight costs are put in the “long distance travel” category. Speakers whose travel expenses are shared between programs will be given greater consideration, since this would reduce costs and possibly allow an additional “long distance” speaker. The OEB graduate student speaker will be given special consideration as “long distance travel” speaker. The committee considers this group of nominees first as it is the category with the most nominations and a limited number of openings are available.
- Travel Categories – We maintain 3 travel categories of speakers, “long distance”, “drive in” and “Amherst area”. The distribution of speakers in these categories each semester will be dependent on our budget and whether there have been late cancelations.
- Nominations from the OEB DEI committee – Nominations from the OEB DEI committee will be given great consideration. Please note the above considerations when making the nominations.
Host considerations
- Frequency of hosting speakers – The seminar committee keeps a historical log of seminar speakers and hosts. Stronger consideration will be given to lab groups which have not recently hosted a speaker. Depending on the number and strength of the nominations a lab group that hosts the previous year may host again in the current year. We strongly suggest that all lab groups submit multiple nominations in years that they are willing to serve as hosts. We do accept applications from individuals, but we would like to see supporting statements regarding how the speaker will interact with the community during the visit. Please contact us with any questions.
- Individual or lab group – We expect that most faculty and students will discuss the speaker nominations as a lab group.
- Size of the group nominating/hosting a speaker – The breadth of impact of the visit is an important consideration. Speakers that are of interest and will interact with more than one individual or group interest from scientists outside OEB are favored.
- Graduate students – We seek nominations for a Special Student Invited Superspeaker that is selected through discussion and voting among the OEB graduate students.
- Early career faculty – Nominations from Assistant Professors are given special consideration for career development and networking provided they also meet many of the above criteria.
Speaker selection, confirmation, and cancellation processes
- Speaker selection – The OEB seminar committee will contact all individuals who submitted nominations to inform them whether their nominated speaker was selected in the initial round.
- Speaker confirmation - Prospective hosts will have 2 weeks to get confirmation from the speaker that they are willing to come and provide the committee with a list of potential dates. Unless there are extenuating circumstances, the committee will move onto the next nominee in the target category. The nominator does not get to automatically invite a different candidate.
- Speaker cancellation – In the event that a speaker cancels, the selection of the replacement will be dependent on the time frame and travel category. If a “long distance” or “drive-in” speaker cancels within 3 months before the start of the semester, we will consider another nominee from the pool in the same categories. If it is later than this but before the start of the semester will choose a replacement from the “Amherst area” pool. In some cases where the prospective hosts knows that the speaker would be willing to come on short notice, we may consider a “long distance” or “drive-in” nominee.