Greetings plant-microbe enthusiasts! I’ve just completed my first year as President of IS-MPMI. I am proud of the exciting developments in our society. Our biggest news is that we have successfully transitioned to a self-managed society. This has dramatically reduced our overhead costs and stimulated board and membership engagement. The transition has spurred us to be more collaborative with other scientific societies. As the first example of this, we are partnering with the Korean Society for Plant Pathology (KSPP) to plan our next Congress at Jeju Island. Chang-Sik Oh is spearheading the organizing and has assembled members of the Regional Scientific and Local Organizing Committee. Thank you Chang-Sik! Look for news about the Congress and your opportunity to shape the content of the meeting by submitting suggestions for concurrent sessions.
Here are some of the other highlights of the past year:
- As of July 1, we have a beautiful new website, built by Keybridge Web. The site includes many talks from the 2025 Congress, accessible to the public with no paywall. It also includes links to the Microgreens Podcast, with interviews from some of our most esteemed IS-MPMI members. On the website, members can read society announcements, and post and read the bulletin board with notices of relevance to members. Our job board is now open for members to submit their opportunities. These posting are free, so please consider submitting your announcements and job opportunities.
- Our Webinar committee, chaired by junior board member Mauricio Contraras, programmed an amazing line up of speakers for our Road to Jeju Webinar series. This series has been made possible by sponsorship from GetGenome, Tanon Life Sciences and the British Society of Plant Pathology. Individual webinars also being sponsored by The New Phytologist Foundation and Agrisera. Roger Innes, 2025 IS-MPMI Outstanding Achievement Award recipient, delivered the first Webinar in the Legends of IS-MPMI portion of the series to an audience of several hundred people from more than 50 countries. Watch his talk “Leaf Surface RNA: how does it get there and what does it do” on our website or our YouTube channel (@is-mpmi3587). The talk stimulated so many interesting questions that we had a second lively recorded session with Roger. See our website for a schedule of future Legends talks by Jonathan Jones, Eva Kondorosi, Jane Parker and Xinnian Dong.
- The second part of the Road to Jeju series includes three sessions with Rising Stars of IS-MPMI. Each session features four self-nominated students or postdocs. The first of these occurred on July 29th; you can watch the talks by Tan Anh Nhi Nguyen, Urooj Fatima, Adrian Gonzalez Ortega and Federico Emanual Aballay on our website or on YouTube. IS-MPMI member Abbie Rogers, who participated in the IS-MPMI 2025 Early Career Showcase, expertly moderated the first session (check out her research talk on our YouTube channel). Thank you, Abbie! Students and Postdocs- please apply to be part of the Rising Stars of IS-MPMI series. Applications are open now for the second installment, consult the website for details.
- Using the Webinar Sponsorship funds, we created two new awards: the GetGenome Award-for the best Rising Star talk and the Tanon Excellence prize- for the runner up. Both prizes come with registration and travel support to the Jeju Congress and the GetGenome Award comes with a plenary talk.
- To diversify the membership, I started a new initiative to give free 2-year memberships to 25 global south students and postdocs. There are still some openings! Write to me at contact@ismpmi.org Consult the membership portion of the website to learn about other discounts.
- With help from former IS-MPMI president Roger Innes, we are fund raising to replenish the Michael Mishkind Travel Fund to help early career members come to the Jeju Congress. We have raised over $25,000 towards the ambitious goal of $40,000. Please consider donating to this fund! https://ismpmi.org/donate/
- We recruited a new Interactions editor-in-chief, Jacqueline Monaghan, who is now a member of the IS-MPMI board of directors. This issue of Interactions marks her inaugural editing of the newsletter. We say good-bye to former editor Anjali Iyer-Pascuzzi, who has become the chair of the Horticulture Department at Purdue University. Thank you, Anjali, for your contributions to IS-MPMI; we wish you well in your new role as Department Chair.
- Have an idea for an IS-MPMI initiative? Write to the board: contact@ismpmi.org