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Pacific Northwest (PNW)

GEP Regional Node Meeting Virtual

Pacific Northwest Regional Node Meeting – April 20, 2024

The Pacific Northwest (PNW) Regional Node had a virtual meeting on April 20th, 2024. The event included participants from four different institutions geographically spanning from southern Oregon to Southern British Columbia, in Canada! 

The event had two parts: student presentations and professional development for faculty. We had five student presenters: Taylor Evans, Amrit Singh and Dongliang Liu from the University of the Fraser Valley presented their annotation of F-Element projects. They were mentored by Dr. James Bedard. Alyssa Gerard from Southern Oregon University gave a presentation related to the Pathways Project, but focused on synteny analysis across multiple species. She was mentored by Dr. Nick Stewart. Natalie Sinclair, from Lewis & Clark College, walked us through her Pathways Annotation Report Form in a lab meeting style presentation and got very useful feedback from the other attendees to complete her annotation. She was mentored by Dr. Norma Velazquez. After presentations ended, the student attendees left and the professional development part of the event started. We invited Chinmay Rele, from The University of Alabama, to talk to the PNW Node faculty about micropublications and reconciliation. We learned about the microPublication pipeline in the Pathways Project and about the new plans for publications. Lastly, the Node faculty members stayed a few more minutes to brainstorm ideas for future events. We all agreed that student presentations are very valuable for the Node.

What worked well for your event that might help others plan similar events?

It is always great to hear students present their work. We organized the presentations by research project and we talked about having each student focus on what made their project unique as an annotation. This made each presentation different despite multiple presentations on the same research project. The presentations were very flexible in format, to decrease the barrier for student participation. We even included one “lab meeting” style presentation to get feedback from the group. There were good questions from attendees and great camaraderie and support for each presentation.

What would your Node do differently based on your experiences?

Invite more students that are not presenting to also attend.

GEP Regional Node Meeting Virtual

Pacific Northwest Regional Node Meeting – November 4, 2023

The Pacific Northwest (PNW) Regional Node had a successful virtual event on November 4th, organized by Dr. Norma Velazquez and Dr. Jack Vincent, Leader and Co-Leader of the PNW Node. Five current GEP faculty, 4 graduate students, and 10 undergraduates attended the event. We had 5 student talks on the F-Element and Pathways research projects. The talks were given by current undergraduates and recent graduates from Linfield University, Southern Oregon University, the University of Washington-Tacoma, and the University of the Fraser Valley, which is a great representation for the small Node that we are. 

The second part of the event was a graduate school panel, which started with an engaging introduction on graduate school myths by Dr. Nate Mortimer, from Oregon State University, followed by unstructured conversations between graduate students and undergraduate attendees. While the students talked, faculty moved to a breakout room to discuss implementation challenges and brainstorm solutions. We all reconvened in the main Zoom room at the end of the event to close the event and thank everyone for their participation.

What worked well for your event that might help others plan similar events?

The students gave great oral presentations and there were questions after each one. The presentations were bundled by research project topic (Pathways vs. F-Element), so there were similarities in the presentations according to topic. Yet, the several Pathway presentations all had their own focus on different aspects of the project, so they did not feel repetitive.

What would your Node do differently based on your experiences?

There needed to be at least 30 minutes more for the event. There ended up being  more student presentations than originally thought, which complicated the final scheduling. Getting a better idea about who will present before deciding the duration of the event would be helpful next time. The other way would be to cap the number of presentations, but it’s always great to have more students present and adjust the time as needed.

Pacific Northwest Regional Node Meeting November 7, 2021

Pacific Northwest Regional Node Meeting – November 7, 2021

The Pacific Northwest (PNW) Regional Node, which currently includes members from Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, held a virtual Regional Node Meeting (RNM) on November 7th, 2021. The meeting was organized by Norma Velazquez-Ulloa (Node Leader), with feedback from all current Node members: Catherine Reinke, James Bedard, Jack Vincent, Holly Paquette, and Tealia Slagle. There were five current members, three prospective members, and eight undergraduate students in attendance, from six different institutions (Lewis & Clark College, Linfield University, The University of the Fraser Valley, The University of Washington-Tacoma, The College of Western Idaho, Boise State University, and Portland Community College).

Sessions at the Regional Node Meeting included:

  • Undergraduate talks presenting GEP gene annotations on the F-Element and Pathways Projects
  • Faculty implementation talks
  • Q&A time for attendees

This successful event was the second RNM for the PNW Regional Node.

Pacific Northwest Regional Node Meeting – November 1, 2020

The GEP’s Pacific Northwest (PNW) Node, which currently has members from Oregon and Washington in the U.S. and from British Columbia in Canada, held their first Regional Node Meeting virtually, on November 1st, 2020.
 
The meeting was organized by Norma Velazquez (Node Leader), with input from the node members, Catherine Rinke, James Bedard, and Tealis Slagle, and Shan Hays, who is a visiting member in the PNW Node.
 
Attendees to this event included 3 faculty members, 14 undergraduate students, and 3 GEP alumni from 4 different institutions (Linfield College, Lewis & Clark College, the University of Fraser Valley, and Oregon State University (visiting faculty)).
 
Sessions at the Regional Node Meeting included:
 
  • Undergraduate talks from beginner and advanced students presenting GEP data
  • Q&A with professors
  • Alumni Panel
 
This successful event was part of the GEP’s second year of NIH IPERT-supported regional activities and created a template for future events for the PNW Node.