Letter From The President
Dear Colleagues, It seems not very long ago that we were all convened in San Antonio for an exciting annual meeting! Now I am pleased to announce that our plans for the 2023 meeting of the American Aging Association to be held next June 8-11 in Oklahoma City are well underway. The Organizing Committee has put together a fantastic scientific program, covering important topics in aging ranging from exercise and intra organ communication, model systems, resilience, and various aspects of metabolism to genetics, epigenetics, genome stability and chromatin alterations. We will also continue our new tradition of one session organized by the Trainee Chapter. This year that session will be organized by Sarah Ocanas and Alice Kane and will cover the Utility and Limitation of Epigenetic Clocks. The American Aging Association strives to insure we have representation from all sectors of our membership at our annual meeting, including speakers balanced for gender and diversity and supporting the contributions of our trainee and early career investigators. As always, we will provide opportunities for participation through the Poster Session Reception/Mixers, Poster Pitches and the Trainee Roundtable and Data Blitz. In our society, we especially value our trainee members. I first attended AGE in Washington DC in 1994 as a postdoctoral fellow myself and was given the opportunity to present on the transcriptional regulation of catalase. I have missed very few conferences since that time, and I consider my membership and participation in this society as a key advantage in my career path. It has been a privilege to witness so many significant advances in this field over the years. This year, to continue our tradition of support of trainees in AGE, we will offer Travel Awards for invited trainee speakers and for selected Poster Pitch presenters. Five Travel Awards will be awarded to support underrepresented minority attendees (details are available in our Trainee Chapter page). We will also continue our relationship with the NIA Office of Special Populations to promote the Butler-Williams Scholar Program Alumni in AGE and at the AGE Annual Meetings. Another key goal for our annual conference has been to foster opportunities for career advancement for our early and mid-career investigators and to provide opportunities for networking. Those of us who have been in this society for a long time surely understand the value the AGE annual conference has had on our careers. There are so many great opportunities for interaction and networking for all our members, including the Opening Reception, the Poster Sessions, the Trainee/Faculty Mixer and our newest addition, the Women of AGE Lunch.
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Holly Van Remmen, PhD, FAAA