SER President’s Message
I hope the fall is proceeding well for all of you in the SER community. Now that I am back on campus, I appreciate the casual interactions, hall conversations, and coffee meet ups with colleagues that were absent when everything was remote. I also worry about how to best protect my health with increased exposure. Outside of work, managing all of the new schedules in my household is a work in progress. I know constant flux and adaptation has become the new normal, but I hope you are all managing this ok and want to acknowledge that it certainly takes a toll.
At SER, we are continuing to prepare for the mid-year and annual meetings. There are excellent symposia, breakfast sessions, lunchtime sessions and workshops that will be offered, and we appreciated reading the thoughtful statements in the proposals on how chairs considered diversity in putting together the topic and the speakers.
One important part of the SER annual meeting is to honor those in our community who have made outstanding contributions through the eight SER awards.
- The Marshall Joffe Epidemiologic Methods Research Award has particular poignance this year, due to the untimely passing of Dr. Joffe in October 2021 (https://www.dbei.med.upenn.edu/passing-marshall-joffe). Dr. Joffe’s rigorous and innovative methodological contributions as well as kindness and generosity in all aspects of his work embody the best of what we aspire to as epidemiologists. Please honor his legacy by nominating a colleague for this award. The criteria are somewhat broader in this cycle than they were originally, with the award now designed to “recognize outstanding accomplishments in developing, adapting, or translating a methodological concept or approach whose usefulness has been demonstrated through fruitful adoption in epidemiology, including applied population health research settings.”
- The newest SER award is the Sherman A. James Diverse and Inclusive Epidemiology Award. This gives us an important opportunity to honor an epidemiologist whose research, teaching and/or service has made an impact in facilitating greater diversity and inclusiveness, and is open to SER members at any career stage. Please support a strong launch of this award by nominating a colleague or mentor whose contributions to diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and justice have made an impression on you, improved your thinking as an epidemiologist, invited more people to the epidemiologic “table”, and made that “table” more welcoming and full of “foods” that everyone in the community can enjoy (quoting Dr. Chandra Jackson https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/189/10/1016/5864888).
Finally, the SER Dissertation Workshop is accepting applications now. This is a wonderful tradition at the SER annual meeting. Please encourage your PhD students to apply – they will have the opportunity to engage in collaborative and constructive discussion of dissertation plans, and to make connections with colleagues across institutions. I organized the workshop in 2021 and was amazed by the strength, creativity, and engagement of the early career epidemiologists.
Thank you all so much for staying engaged in our community, and I look forward to connecting before long at the mid-year and annual meetings.