I wanted to take this opportunity to provide you with some Society updates, and let you know about some up-coming opportunities.

This year's annual conference will be held at the University of Guelph, from June 22-25. The conference is an excellent opportunity to showcase outstanding microbiology research going on across Canada, and internationally. I encourage you all to attend! Please check out the conference website to register and submit an abstract, and to get more information. You can also follow @CSM2020_Guelph on Twitter for conference news and updates.

Please note the following deadlines associated with the conference:
March 20 - Student competition and Postdoc symposium abstract submission closes
March 27 - General abstract submission closes
April 15 - Early registration ends

A highlight of the annual conference is the presentation of awards recognizing exceptional achievements by graduate students (Armand-Frappier Outstanding Student Award), postdocs (CSM Knowles Postdoctoral Research Prize), early-career investigators (Thermo Fisher Award for New Investigators), and senior investigators (CSM Murray Award for Career Achievement, sponsored by Canadian Science Publishing and Canadian Journal of Microbiology). Please submit nominations for deserving students, postdoctoral fellows and colleagues by the April 1st deadline. Information and nomination forms for all of these awards can be found on the CSM Awards webpage.

On that same webpage, you will find information about awards available for top undergraduate students, opportunities for students or Post Doctoral Fellows to serve as CSM Ambassadors, a multitude of poster and oral presentations prizes for post-doctoral fellows and graduate students presenting at the annual conference, and a number of travel awards to help defray the cost of travel to the annual conference.

Thanks to those who answered the call for nominations and volunteers to fill important roles on the CSM executive and standing committees.

We are thrilled to welcome Pascale Beauregard (Université de Sherbrooke) to the CSM Executive as our new 2nd Vice President, and Mazen Salah (Laurentian University) as the new Secretary/Treasurer. Chris Yost (University of Regina) renewed his term as Meetings Secretary, and Stephanie Jones (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) renewed her term as Postdoc rep.

New additions to the CSM Council include two section vice-chairs: Joel Weadge (Infection and Immunity) and Jenny-Lee Thomassin (Molecular Genetics and Cellular Microbiology). Edel Pérez Lopéz is the new Co-Chair of the Education & Careers Committee.

There will be an election for vice-chair Applied and Environment Microbiology since multiple nominations were received. A separate email with a link to the voting site will follow. Please take time to review the nominations and make your choice.

Finally, on behalf of our members, a heartfelt thank you to our outgoing executive members for their years of dedicated service to CSM: Marie Elliot (Past President) and Mohan Babu (Secretary/Treasurer).

I look forward to seeing you in Guelph in June!

Sincerely,
Janet E. Hill, Ph.D.
CSM President