Thoughts on SNL upon being nominated for chair

I'm honored to have been nominated for the position of Chair for the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL). If you are presented with candidates to vote for in leadership positions, it seems reasonable for you to know what their past involvement in the society is and what their vision for the future includes. I'll try to share both of those briefly, with a caveat: My experience is that leaders are typically most effective when they go in and understand how things currently work before changing a bunch of things (and in group situations, like boards, it's hard or impossible to unilaterally change things, anyway). (Of course, these are my current ideas, which may well evolve over time!)

Background

I started going to SNL as a postdoc in 2009 (the first meeting!). My prior experience included Society for Neuroscience and Academy of Aphasia. I was immediately drawn to the research presented at SNL, which included a better blend of neuroimaging and language research than other conferences. I also benefitted from the chance to meet other people interested in similar things I was (i.e., "networking" but don't call it that).

In 2015 I was elected as the "Meeting Liaison", a position that was subsequently renamed "Program Committee Chair". In that role I helped the 2016 SNL meeting in London (along with the local organizing committee, program committee, and our conference organizers). I also brought to the board the idea of amending the bylaws to formalize a commitment to gender balance in our invited speakers. Prior to 2016, 30% of SNL speakers were women (I know because I counted). At the 2016 meeting 60% of the speakers were women, and we added the following to the SNL bylaws:

Section 6. Speaker gender balance. The program committee chair reports on speaker gender balance annually at the board meeting. The aspiration of the Council is a 50-50 gender balance between male and female invited speakers in symposia and debates in any given 3-year time- window.

(a change which is still there). In the years since the 2016 meeting and bylaws change, speaker gender balance has been much improved.

Since 2016 I have attended the annual meeting several times (though not annually, due in part to having an increasing number of small children at home and COVID). I was glad to be back at SNL in person in 2022.

I have reviewed abstracts for SNL nearly every year since 2009 (I think I missed one year, but it might be two). I am an action editor for Neurobiology of Language, the society journal published by MIT Press.

A potential agenda

In addition to continuing all of the good things the society has been doing, I'd like to think about working on three areas:

1. Expanding our work in diversity, accessibility, equity, and inclusion. We've made some strides but there is more to do, and the board needs to lead in this regard. Specifically, continuing to broaden the diversity of speakers at the annual meeting and improve support for trainees and ECRs who can benefit from it. We also need a meeting code of conduct! [One approach, which I like, is to have a standing DEI committee to make independent progress on these things. It's unclear to me whether this currently exists.]
2. Deepening engagement with students and postdocs. I would like to see continued expansion of our support for trainees through social and career development events at the annual conference, and also potentially throughout the year.
3. Continued innovation around "networking". The society provides a unique opportunity to meet other researchers—something that is valuable at all career stages. I will continue to explore new ways of building lasting relationships across sub disciplines and academic generations that will help all members thrive. It would be great to see this happen not only at the annual meeting, but throughout the year (the recent addition of member-initiated virtual activities is a great step in this direction!).

General approach

1. Look at what the current board has been doing. Not all of the plans and discussions from board meetings make it to the public, so it's important to first evaluate what is in progress, or has been tried but didn't work, before jumping headlong into new initiatives.
2. Survey SNL membership. In addition to the annual meeting survey, some targeted surveys assessing how well the society is currently meeting needs and what the biggest priorities are for improvement may be useful.
3. Learn from peer societies. We don't need to reinvent the wheel; other societies also have smart people thinking about many of these same issues, and we can benefit from their experiments (both failed and successful) as we think about what would work for SNL.

A challenge with a limited board term is that even small changes that get incorporated into the culture (or bylaws) can be more effective in the long run than trying to energetically do a million big things that stop when the current board rotates off. My goal is meaningful long-term benefit, not a one-time cool activity.

Conclusion

I hope this has given you a sense of my background and thinking about SNL, an organization about which I care deeply. If you have any questions please feel free to get in touch and I will do my best to reply. In the olden times I was fairly active on Twitter; since current management took over and started allowing and encouraging hate speech I left. But you can find me on Mastodon (@jpeelle@neuromatch.social)!

Translation to plain English of the Statement from APS Regarding Possible Executive Order Affecting Publications

On December 18th the American Association of Publishers published a letter protesting possible plans to mandate faster sharing of research articles. Signed by many commercial publishers (including Elsevier, Wiley, Wolters Kluwer), it was also signed by a number of scientific societies, including the Association for Psychological Science, one that has many members who support publishing reform. APS put out a statement regarding the issue.

Last week, reports emerged that the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) was in the process of developing an executive order to overturn established federal policy and make articles reporting on US federally funded research immediately free to the public.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

No details were available about the change, when such a change might take effect, or what the process would be for gathering input from the affected stakeholders, including scientific organizations like APS, as well as the public.

We knew this was coming but are acting surprised.

Given the potential ramifications,

Realizing we might lose money,

APS joined with other scientific societies and publishers in mobilizing a quick, broad response in opposition to the possible executive order,

we all collectively lost our sh*t and hastily signed a letter in which we argue that "Going below the current 12 month 'embargo'...would undermine American jobs, exports, innovation, and intellectual property"

so that there is more time to gather information and discuss implications.

so that we would have more time to lobby.

Both Congress and the OSTP are responding to the concerns that were expressed,

We hope that anyone who reads this letter sincerely believes that in the midst of the impeachment circus, holidays, and recess, congress is laser focused on issues related to academic publishing.

and we are hoping for a more balanced discussion around these issues going forward.

dear lord let us keep our embargo.

Society publishing is changing, and APS journals will continue to evolve with those changes. Currently, articles reporting on US federally-funded research findings become freely available 12 months after publication. A sudden change in that policy by executive order would take away APS’s ability to approach these changes in a manner that best serves our members, our diverse field, and our community, and delivers high-quality science.

Blah blah blah blah blah.

Things that seemed more trouble than they were worth to learn but turned out to be worth it

1. LaTeX
2. R
3. cron jobs
4. bash
5. regular expressions
6. Illustrator
7. git
8. embedding animated GIFs into tweets

Time management strategies that I may have used myself or maybe have observed in colleagues I can't say which

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The multibook

The mark of an optimist, with a multi book I simply keep adding multiple meetings to the same time slot and have faith that somehow they will all fit.

Pro: Fit in many more meetings.

Con: More difficult than anticipated to bend space-time continuum.

The "I have faith in you"

Another optimistic approach assumes that most people can solve their own problems and don't actually need my input. By simply not responding to emails for a few weeks or maybe ever people figure things out without help.

Pro: Problems magically disappear!

Con: Everyone hates me.

The "get back to me in three weeks"

A variant of the above this involves a single email that can be copied and pasted:

Thank you for your email! I've seen it but don't have time for a real response right now. If you haven't heard in 3 weeks please get back in touch and I'll do my best to respond.

Pro: Reduces my guilt over not doing things and many times people figure things out on their own.

Con: Occasionally things need doing sooner than 3 weeks.

The Costanza

By looking annoyed and frazzled it's possible to discourage long discussions with people, who assume you are busy. Frequently this occurs naturally due to actual frazzlement and stress, particularly around February 5, June 5, and October 5.

Pro: People leave me alone.

Con: People leave me alone.

Translation to plain English of the editor's note on Nature's editorial on statues

Following a public outcry on 6-7 September 2017 Nature lightly edited their anonymous editorial from 4 September without preserving the original.

Anonymous (2017). Science must acknowledge its past mistakes and crimes. Nature 549, 5–6 (07 September 2017)

Editor's note: The original version of this article was offensive and poorly worded.

This op-ed sucks.

It did not accurately convey our intended message and it suggested that Nature is defending statues of scientists who have done grave injustice to minorities and other people.

Look, just because everyone who saw the article read it as defending statues of scientists who have done grave injustices to minorities and other people doesn't mean you can prove our intent in a court of law.

We have corrected the headline, standfirst and a line in the text to make clear we do not support keeping those memorials;

A few words here, a little tweak there, and Alakazam! A pile of dogshit becomes a diamond.

our position is that any such memorials that are allowed to stand should be accompanied by context that makes the injustice clear and acknowledges the victims.

A little plaque next to a huge statue makes up for everything, including slaves operated on without their permission and with no anesthetic.

We apologise for the original article

We are sorry if our original article offended you.

and are taking steps to ensure that we do not make similar mistakes in the future.

But, we are not changing anything. We are definitely not going to include one or more equally-sized op-eds in our next issue from non-white scientists who may have a different opinion.

We realise that many people disagree with the article more fundamentally;

Damn y'all on Twitter!

we will be publishing some of the strong criticisms that we have received and welcome further responses.

Please can we just whitewash this whole episode? Also can everyone just keep reviewing for us without mentioning this episode when we ask you please? (This includes Frontiers which we own!!!)

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(Hat tip to Daring Fireball for inspiration)

Things I swore I would never do when I had my own lab but am now doing

1. Have a picture on my professional website that is more than 4 years old.

2. Drift in and out of email checking while I get real work done.

3. Be late to almost every meeting because I schedule back-to-back meetings and can never end them early.

4. Forget details about experiments we are running in my lab.

5. Tell that same story yet again because I have no idea if I told it before, or if so, to whom.