ASPB members share a common goal of promoting the growth, development, and outreach of plant biology as a pure and applied science. This column features some of the dedicated and innovative members of ASPB who believe that membership in our Society is crucial to the future of plant biology.

If you are interested in contributing to this feature, please contact ASPB Membership at info@aspb.org.

Membership Corner

Name: Nic Bate
Title: Research Manager
Place of Work or School: Pioneer Hi-Bred, Johnston, Iowa
Research Area: Yield and stress biotechnology
Member since: Off and on since 1986

1. Why has being a member of ASPB been important?
ASPB has played different roles for me during the course of my career. As an undergraduate, it helped make me aware of the global community of scientists with a common interest in plant biology. As a graduate student and as a postdoc, the Society made me aware of opportunities and provided a mechanism to share ideas. At present, ASPB’s most important role is that it keeps me connected with the larger scientific community outside the company I work for.

2. Was someone instrumental in getting you to join ASPB?
My undergraduate adviser, Dr. Stewart Rood at the University of Lethbridge, actually paid for my first membership dues.

3. What would you tell colleagues to encourage them to join?
I would tell potential members of the multiple positive roles that this organization can play in their career.

4. Have you enhanced your career using ASPB job postings or through networking at an ASPB function?
Certainly as a graduate student and as a postdoc I regularly applied for positions advertised in the ASPB Job Bank.

5. Have you had any success finding candidates as a result of a job posting at the meeting or on our online Job Bank?
Within our group we have advertised positions at the annual meeting since that is one of the best places to capture the target audience.

6. Do you read print journals? If so, where do you usually read them?
For me, there is no substitute for reading print journals in a library with no distractions or prejudice from the subjects that I am currently working on.

7. What do you think is the next “big thing” in plant biology?
I think the opportunities from a systems biology perspective provide exciting possibilities for an “all encompassing theory of everything,” particularly as they are applied across broad genetic variability. The ability to integrate all the information we are currently generating into a better picture of metabolism and development is going to be very exciting. I would also suggest plant modeling, and the ability to apply mathematical models to plant development and environmental responses, as being a “big thing” for the future.

8. What person, living or deceased, do you most admire?
On a professional level, I would say Henry Wallace. In addition to founding Pioneer Hi-Bred, Henry Wallace was the U.S. secretary of agriculture and vice president under Roosevelt. He had an energy and an ability to get things done that is really admirable. His biography American Dreamer is a very interesting read from both scientific and historical perspectives.

9. What are you reading these days?
I am still working through my Christmas books. Currently, I am reading Graham Greene’s The Quiet American and Steven Covey’s 8th Habit.

10. What are your hobbies?
By far the most important hobby to me is playing guitar, which always manages to clear away the cobwebs in my head, no matter what my mind-set happens to be.

11. What is your most treasured possession?
Easily my most treasured possession would be my relationship with my wife and children.

12. What do you still have left to learn?
How to balance the creative side of discovery science that leads to truly novel innovations with the need to manage and provide structure to the process of research.