2012 Annual Meeting
Applied Reproductive Biology: Making It Relevant
45th Annual Meeting
of the
Society for the Study of Reproduction
12–15 August 2012
Hosted by the Center for Reproductive Biology and Health
The Pennsylvania State University
State College, Pennsylvania
President: Barbara C. Vanderhyden, Ph.D.
(Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)
Program Committee Chair: Mary B. Zelinski, Ph.D.
(Oregon National Primate Research Center, Beaverton, Oregon)
Local Arrangements Committee Chair: Joy L. Pate, Ph.D.
(The Penn State University, State College, Pennsylvania)
Science Education Outreach Coordinator: Francisco J. Diaz, Ph.D.
(The Penn State University, State College, Pennsylvania)
Preliminary Information from the Local Arrangements Committee
Abstracts
The deadline for submission of abstracts for the 2012 meeting is 1 March 2012.
Important Visa News
The National Academies’ International Visitors Office is continuing to advise that all visa applicants apply at least 3 to 4 months in advance. Applicants are now experiencing delays greater than 3 months. Some consulates may have backlogs in scheduling visa interviews; applicants should first contact the consulate to find out how long the wait is for an interview. Please make all your preparations for the meeting as soon as possible.
All international visitors require a valid passport, and some visitors may need a tourist visa. Please consult the embassy or consulate in your own country well in advance of travel to ensure that the appropriate documentation is obtained. We encourage foreign scientists planning to attend the SSR Annual Meeting to apply for a visa as early as possible and pay careful attention to US State Department guidance in this matter. The web site of the US National Academies contains very useful information for scientists traveling to the United States:
Additional visa information is available at the US Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs web site:
Schedule
The program schedule will be made available at a later date. The formal program will begin early at 12:30 pm on Sunday, 12 August, preceded by the Science Education Outreach Day on Saturday, 11 August, and an NIH Grant Writing Workshop in the morning of 12 August. The formal program will conclude with the traditional Barbecue & Dance late in the evening of Wednesday, 15 August; please schedule your travel and accommodations accordingly.
Information for Trainees
Up-to-date information about special trainee events, opportunities, and funding will be placed here. Check back for more details!
- Trainee Travel Grants and Fellowships
- Trainee Research Awards Page
- Cornelia Post Channing New Investigator Award
Location
The SSR 2012 Local Arrangements Committee is proud to invite you to the Penn State University campus next year. For SSR, this return to a campus venue coincides with the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Act, establishing the land-grant university system. While this may be considered a “retro” meeting, you should not expect to experience the discomforts you may remember from campus meetings of yore. Instead, you will find that dorm rooms are private and air-conditioned, platform and minisymposia sessions are close enough to minimize walking and allow one to quickly switch sessions, posters sessions are spacious, and the food is great! In addition, you will be amazed at the beauty that will surround you on this campus—luxurious landscaping, gorgeous gardens, scintillating sculptures and fantastic fountains! Our Penn State faculty and trainees are committed to making your experience on our campus a pleasant one. To that end, attention to the following details will facilitate your planning and make the 2012 meeting the most enjoyable for you.
Accommodations
Getting here may be slightly more challenging than major convention centers, but once here, it is all going to be easy! We encourage you to take advantage of the fantastic dormitories. There will be two options: Eastview Terrace consists of 800 private rooms with private bath, while North Dorms has both shared (2 per room with 2 or 4 sharing a bath) and private rooms. All dorm rooms are newly renovated, clean, spacious and air-conditioned! Ask President Barbara Vanderhyden or Program Chair Mary Zelinski—they stayed in them. Prices for dorm rooms will be reasonable and will include breakfast.
If you refuse to stay in the dorm (but really, give it some thought . . .), there are a number of hotel options. The Nittany Lion Inn is a beautiful historic hotel located right on campus (this one fills up quickly). The other campus hotel is the Penn Stater Conference Center, but this one is 2 miles from campus (with shuttle service to campus). Full housing info, including additional nearby hotels, will soon be listed on the SSR 2012 Meeting Accomodations page. Another word of caution: hotels here fill up, especially on weekends. If you want to stay in a hotel, you are on your own to make your reservation, but we encourage you to do it early (like right after you book that flight!).
Please see the Accommodations page for more details.
Travel & Transportation
If you can, consider driving to State College. We are nestled in the heart of the Allegheny Mountains, and it is a gorgeous drive through the mountains to get here, from any direction! Really, we are not lying about this. Those who live too far away to drive may fly into the State College airport (SCE) from Detroit (Delta), Philadelphia (USAirways) or Washington Dulles (United). PLEASE NOTE that there are limited flights into and out of SCE, and they fill up early. If you want to fly directly here, we strongly encourage you to make your airline reservations very early! If you fail to do this, your alternative will be to fly into one of the surrounding major cities and rent a car (or find a bus). Driving distance from: New York = 4 hours, Washington = 3.5 hours, Pittsburgh = 3 hours, Harrisburg = 1.5 hours. More details on this forthcoming. Amtrak services the nearby towns of Lewistown and Tyrone, but there is only one train from Philadelphia and one from Pittsburgh each day. If it fits your schedule and you choose to come by train, you should contact a member of the LAC to arrange for pick-up at the train station.
Dining
We won’t let you starve. You can get almost anything you want for breakfast in the commons (or your hotel). Those of you who are holding your stomachs and remembering dorm food from the dark ages when you were a student . . . forget about it! You will have plenty of options for breakfast. We will have boxed lunches available. Because the meeting is being held in between semesters, there is limited food service on campus (some, but not all the time). You can walk to College Ave for lunch, but it will be a 10-minute walk there and a 15-minute walk back (slight uphill and you will have a full belly), so we suggest you sign up for the boxed lunch if you want to maximize on socialization time with your colleagues. For dinner, there are lots of restaurants, cafes, pubs and student-type beer establishments on College Avenue, which is a short walk from the Nittany Lion Inn or north Dorms and right across the street from the Eastview Dorms.
Other Information
If you want to explore the area, or if you find that you need to fly in early or out later, we will provide a list of things to do on campus and in the general area. If a number of attendees arrive early, we will plan some organized activities, such as a hike up Mt Nittany, golf, soccer, etc. Don’t panic. There are things to do and we will be providing suggestions on the SSR website during this year. By the time that summer 2012 rolls around, you will want to come for a month!