Message from the Program Officer

Linda Walters

Greetings! The Program Committee (all Divisional Program Officers, Program Officers from TCS and AMS, Sue Burk and Lori Strong from Burk Associates, and myself) met the last weekend of September 2006 and put together a phenomenal program for the January 2007 meeting in Phoenix. There will be 1082 presentations, including 10 symposia on a wide range of hot topics, and approximately equal numbers of oral contributed talks and poster presentations. To accommodate all presenters, there will be 12 concurrent sessions most days. Dedicated poster sessions will occur each afternoon from 3-5 PM. In the past, switching rooms between oral presentations was a chore and rooms frequently could not accommodate all viewers. This should not be an issue this year - all symposia and contributed talks will be in one wing of the new Phoenix Convention Center. The rooms are state-of-the-art and range in seating capacity from 100 - 300 individuals. The conference hotel, the Hyatt Regency, is located directly across the street and many of the invited evening speakers and social functions will be held at the hotel. Downtown Phoenix has been revitalized in recent years and now boasts many new restaurants in a wide range of prices, lots of art, and hopefully comfortable temperatures in January. I hope you will be able to attend the 2007 annual meeting of SICB. By all accounts, it should be a very good meeting!