Dear Members of the Artificial Life community,
The International Society for Artificial Life (ISAL) is seeking nominations for our Board of Directors. The board is responsible for managing the society, facilitating the organization of conferences, interfacing with the Artificial Life journal, advocating artificial life research, and developing and promoting the community as a whole.
Board members facilitate these activities by attending monthly virtual meetings, contributing to and attending the annual Artificial Life conferences, and taking up a role on the board. In addition to standard roles (President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer), other roles for board members include Education Chair, Diversity Chair, Public Relations Chair, Industrial Relations Chair, Societal Impact Chair, Membership Chair, Awards Chair, Journal Liaison, and Conference Liaison. New roles can be created to facilitate initiatives that a board member wishes to pursue. Board roles are described as follows:
President – Organize agendas, run board meetings, and direct the high-level goals for the society; make sure all other roles are being handled appropriately and facilitate new initiatives or advancement of stuck projects; make sure communication within the board and with the membership is active.
Vice President – Step into other critical roles when responsible board members are unavailable or have a conflict of interest; consult with President or other board members on major ISAL directions or matters of concern; help initiate new board activities.
Secretary – Coordinate board meeting times and take lead on recording minutes. Manage voting (both for board matters and membership) Collect submissions in response to board requests (e.g., conference proposals, board nominations, etc.)
Treasurer – Track ISAL bank account and other finances; Handle annual tax payments to US Gov’t; Make other necessary payments as decided by the ISAL board.
Archivist – Archive data about conferences (submissions, acceptance rates, attendance numbers over time, demographics of attendees.); track data on papers published in the field of Artificial Life (Not just in our journal and conferences, but anywhere); maintain a record of membership survey data, with analysis as appropriate.
Awards Chair – Manage annual awards process (solicit nominations, coordinate committees to select winners, organize ceremony, announce results); explore updates to the awards system or new ways to recognize ISAL members; identify and track non-ISAL awards for which we should nominate members.
Conference Liaison – Coordinate between board and conference organizers; help establish appropriate conference budgets; setup and coordinate conference review systems, with help from board.
Cross-Disciplinary Liaison – Identify mechanisms for Artificial Life to establish more of a presence in fields where we want to grow; coordinate with related sub-fields; build cross-journal referrals or co-location of conferences; curate materials to help facilitate people getting into artificial life.
Development Chair – Work with outside donors (typically companies, foundations, or private individuals) to generate extra revenue for the society.
Diversity Chair – Track diversity in the society, including gender balance, people with disabilities, and breadth of international participation; facilitate ISAL initiatives to ensure that we maintain an inclusive, equitable, and welcoming community.
Education & Outreach Chair – Track education or outreach-focused projects going on in the field; facilitate a community of ISAL members interested in educational goals and public outreach, such as citizen science; lead the organization of the annual ISAL Summer School.
Industrial Relations Chair – Help ensure industrial members are linked in to the ISAL community; organize events of interest to industrial members; solicit industrial funding for ISAL or conferences
Journal Liaison – Coordinate activities between the ISAL board and MIT Press journal; should ideally be filled by someone who is at least an associated editor for the journal, which comes with its own set of responsibilities.
Membership Chair – Maintain a membership system and lead discussions on membership policies; Coordinate membership information with MIT Press; Manage periodic membership surveys and analyze results.
Public Relations Chair – Maintain a strong ISAL presence, including material for the alife.org site and on social media; coordinate community initiatives related to promoting and informing about Artificial Life, both as a field and individual projects.
Research Chair – Promote research within the Artificial Life community, helping to publicize new findings and encourage the development of new connections and collaborations.
Societal Impact Chair – Promote discussion and initiatives associated with the societal impact of artificial life; ensure the conference and journal pay attention to society impact.
Webmaster – Maintain the ISAL website, as well as links to membership management services, the Artificial Life journal, and MIT Press.
Elections to the ISAL Board of Directors will take place this year to fill six board positions, for the next four-year board term. Five of these positions are currently occupied by Wolfgang Banzhaf, Emily Dolson, Lana Sinapayen, Olaf Witkowski, and Charles Ofria.
See the full list of current board members here: https://alife.org/board-of-directors/
Please nominate candidates for the five open board positions by filling out
the following online form (time involvement: 5-min max):
NOMINATE HERE: https://forms.gle/EPma5FuMXyaFERpR8
You may use this form multiple times to propose additional candidates.
Please select people who you believe will put in time and energy to help
the society succeed. Self-nominations are encouraged!
Any ISAL member may be elected to the ISAL Board of Directors, including
outgoing board members. If you are not sure whether the person you are
nominating is already an ISAL member or not, please nominate them anyway.
If they are not an ISAL member, we will contact them to ask if they are
willing to become a member in the event that they are elected.
The deadline for receipt of nominations is June 30th.
The subsequent process is as follows:
1. Nominees will be approached and those who wish to stand for election
will be asked to provide a short statement of their intentions and
priorities, should they be elected.
2. The list of nominees who wish to stand for election and their statements
will be circulated by email to ISAL members (anyone may nominate, but only
members may vote).
3. ISAL members will be asked to vote on the candidates via another online
form.
4. The five candidates with the most votes will be elected to the ISAL
Board of Directors.
Note that anyone may nominate, but only ISAL members may vote in the next
round to make the final selection of new board members. To join ISAL, see:
http://alife.org/membership
Thank you for your attention and we look forward to receiving your
nominations!