Sally Assmann

Sally Assmann Assumes Presidency October 1

Sarah M. (Sally) Assmann, Penn State University, is ASPB’s new president. She succeeds Rob McClung, Dartmouth University, who became immediate past president on October 1. The Society’s new president-elect is Tuan-hua David Ho, Washington University in St. Louis.

Sally currently is the Waller Professor of Biology at Penn State University. She received her BA in biology from Williams College in 1980 and her PhD in biology from Stanford University in 1985. After a postdoctorate at UC–Riverside with Rob Leonard, she joined the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Department at Harvard University as an assistant professor in 1987 and continued there as an associate professor. In 1993, she moved to the Biology Department at Penn State.

During her PhD research with Eduardo Zeiger on stomatal responses to light, Sally developed a fascination with cellular signaling, an emphasis that is retained in her laboratory to this day. Her group takes a multilevel approach to guard cell biology and draws on methods ranging from single-cell electrophysiology and ionic imaging; to molecular genetic, genomic, and proteomics approaches; to whole plant physiology. Recently, Sally has begun collaborating with systems biologists to construct predictive models of guard cell signaling. In 2006, she was one of a team of scientists awarded an NSF Arabidopsis 2010 grant to elucidate the membrane interactome. The project’s aim—to define the protein–protein interaction network of several thousand membrane proteins and soluble signaling proteins—should provide a wealth of information to the plant science community.

Another major research focus of Sally’s group is on roles of heterotri-meric G-proteins in plant plasticity and plant stress tolerance. She has demonstrated that these key signaling proteins regulate a diversity of ion transport, hormonal, and developmental processes and is extending this research from the model plant Arabidopsis to the oilseed crop canola.

Sally teaches introductory plant physiology to freshmen and a laboratory course on cell biology techniques to beginning graduate students. Her professional activities include grant review panels for NSF, DOE, and USDA; in 2004, she was program manager for the USDA Developmental Processes in Crop Species panel. She has served in an editorial capacity for a number of journals: subject editor for Plant, Cell, & Environment from 1997 to 2000; editorial board member of Plant and Cell Physiology from 1998 to 2001; and monitoring editor for Plant Physiology from 1994 to 1997. She has been a coeditor for The Plant Cell since 1998. Other ASPB service includes membership on the Publications Committee from 2000 to 2005, current membership on the board of directors of the Education Foundation, and co-organizer of the “Biology of Transpiration” meeting held in 2006. Sally’s K–12 outreach activities include teaching special programs on plant biology to elementary school classes and production of “Roots of Discovery,” a 30-minute science education video. Her most extensive outreach effort has been development of a week-long summer science camp on plant biology for 4th through 8th graders, which used the popular Harry Potter series to engage over 150 children in the subject of “herbology.”

Sally writes, “During my past year as ASPB president-elect, I have been struck by how extremely dedicated and generous both ASPB members and ASPB headquarters staff are in committing their time, energies, and insights to ASPB and its initiatives. Many members read and publish in our stellar journals, The Plant Cell and Plant Physiology, and 27% of current members have enjoyed the outstanding science and camaraderie of one or more ASPB meetings. Yet ASPB does so much more, ranging from lobbying Capitol Hill for crucial support of plant biology and agriculture, to providing free copies of the much-lauded ASPB-published textbook, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Plants, to scientists and educators in lesser developed countries. In the coming year I look forward to more opportunities to contribute to ASPB’s wide-ranging endeavors. Society initiatives I’ll be engaged in include working with the ever-vigilant Public Affairs Committee and associated ASPB staff to provide an accurate portrayal of science and our scientific endeavors to the general public, funding agencies, and Congress; partnering with our Minority Affairs, Women’s, and Membership Committees to further improve the diversity of our membership and leadership; promoting increased education and outreach efforts to the international plant sciences community; and, in the truly global community of the Internet, serving on the advisory board for an ASPB-sponsored YouTube plant biology video contest. This contest is just one of several innovative projects to receive GAP award funding from the ASPB Education Foundation (http://www. aspb.org/education/foundation/gap.cfm). You, your children, and your students will all be eligible to submit videos—see article for more details.