BGSA meeting 04.06.15
1. Call to order, and presidents report (Greg) – 1:34
a. Nominations and vote for Secretary – Abby Stahl voted in as new
secretary
b. Happy grad student appreciation week!! – events calendar has been
sent in emails and see GPSG report below
c. Newsletter soon d. Other events for April to advertise?
i. Versatile Ph.D. – panel on STEM careers 4/16/15, 5-6:30 @
Univ. Club. Conf., Room A…some industry and also prof. from
Pitt who are involved in administration, research and
teaching…there will also be food.
ii. Grant writing strategies and effective writing habits – coming
up soon…Nyla will get more info on time and location.
iii. PHICC - Final presentations for 3:15pm on Friday, public is
welcome, Benedum Hall, Room 102, also, they still need
volunteers…Chelsea Merkel is contact…an email was also sent
to everyone this morning 4/6/15.
2. WSMA update (Rachel) – doctoral directions was a success and Abhishek’s
check for additional donation to cover honorarium for second speaker has
cleared.
3. Secretary report (Brooke)
a. Approval of March minutes…March minutes approved.
b. Brooke’s final BGSA meeting…Abby voted in as interim secretary
4. GPSG Report (Aliyah)a. Grad student appreciation week…see flyer in email…is at least one
event each day of this week (except Wednesday)…paint night, laser
tag, comedy night all have tickets available…TedX is sold out but you
can still watch from the student union….Aliyah will post room number
on facebook when she finds it
b. new travel grant cycle opens May 1 (closes May 31) for travel in July
and August, applications for travel in May and June are closed
c. undergrad mentoring…school of social work has a program like that
in place….have templates, etc. in place if it’s something we want to
pursue
d. a few other schools have symposiums that are open regionally to
other schools…something we can consider for our annual symposium.
e. GPSG annual report – each school’s student gov’t submits 1 page
report on the events/activities we have been involved in – deadline is
April 15….she (Aliyah) can look at newletters from 2014, but needs
info on events from 2015…if people can email her information if they
planned events in this first quarter, it would be greatly appreaciated.
f. Will not be doing PH.D. comics event, so our approved donation will
not be needed….are going to try and do it next year and will revisit
need for a donation then.
5. Treasurer’s report (Abhishek)
a. Have about $5K in personal acct., have $5.5K in University acct. once a
couple transactions come through (extra funding for WSMA
conference and $ for ski trip that was removed and placed into first
niagra acct.)
b. Have received 1 check from 1 program for funding for next year and 1
more commitment…still waiting to hear from other programs…emails
were sent to programs 2 weeks ago. Plenty of time for responses.
i. Abhishek recommends we ask for less $ next year from each
program because we have excess and the programs may be
more willing/happy to donate if we ask for a lower amount.
c. PHICC sponsorship (Chelsea) this Friday, number of BGSA students
involved this year, business style case competition w/ BioE and other
programs and nearby universities…advising competition, can help you
develop techniques outside of the lab….judges from McKinsey and
other local consulting companies and some faculty, have gotten lots of
support from grad office, SOM, and numerous programs…they would
also like to request we make a donation to help support this event in
the future.
d. Other consulting opportunities – 4th River Solutions – Pitt-based
student consulting organizations that works to help local
labs/companies – sponsors the above event (PHICC) and our donation
would go to 4th River to pay for PHICC.
6. Grad office report
a. Shelter permit has been granted! Yay…much easier process now than
has been in the past.
b. CLARE DESPERATELY NEEDS HOUSING HELPER VOLUNTEERS!!!
PLEASE get involved!
7. Past events
a. Doctoral Directions – very successful.
b. Science fairs – only 2 of the people who signed up showed up at the
Neighborhood academy, but it went okay. Kids presentations at his
event so it was fairly low key.
c. Intel Science Fair – May 2015…at Heinz field event, much bigger than
Neighborhood academy event. Hundreds of posters and very well
organized….lots of categories and age groups… Great opportunity to
judge and judges are still needed. Can Google this event or can contact
Abhishek for more information.
d. Dave and Busters – was a success, had people from all programs so a
lot of opportunity to network, came out ahead financially.
e. Comps Panel – spent $100 on cookies and coffee, had a big turnout,
several second year students found it to be very helpful.
8. Upcoming events
a. Symposium – being planned
i. Have a speaker…went through a lot of female candidates, it is a
guy…from Stanford, moving to UCSF, comp. bio work…his
name is Atul Butte….MD/PhD, worked for Apple,
Microsoft…very highly recommended.
ii. Will be looking for committee helpers soon and Clare is getting
rooms booked in Pitt union.
b. Academic career seminar series – only had one last year, we need to
start planning for this summer’s talks…
i. Agustin has a suggestion for someone who has graduated from
Pitt and now works in Washington.
ii. Aliyah also suggested Christina Zalinkski who graduated from
Cell Bio and is now involved in science writing.
iii. Nyla may also have a suggestion for a science writer if that
doesn’t work out.
iv. Abby S. also knows someone doing an internship with the FDA
(he’s in DC in is in PA often).
v. Everyone please check to see if and when your suggested
speakers are available and please bring this information to the
next meeting so we can decide when to have these events and
who will speak at them.
vi. If anyone has additional suggestions, please try and determine
their availability and they will be considered at next month’s
meeting
c. End of semester happy hour? Do an event with BioE and have a happy
hour afterwards? Greg will look into it…Myowa will plan it once we
get a date figured out with BioE…first and last weekends in May not
be the best as there are other events going on.
d. We would like to do bagels/donuts for student appreciation
week…will get donuts and bagels for 50 people…Greg will spearhead
this and we will deliver them from the grad student office. Email to
come?
9. Website
a. Not going to be able to do overhaul at the moment….Waleed is
graduating and Aliyah can’t get software to work on her computer and
time has not allowed for it to progress further. Aliyah is going to try
and keep cleaning up the site via the coding.
b. If someone is interested in working on the site, Aliyah can get you the
Adobe info and you can give it a whirl but uploading it may be an issue
as she is even still waiting to get authorization to do so through Pitt…
c. We may consider outsourcing and just paying to have it done but Pitt
has a number of security requirements for pages associated with the
university. But, it is something we can consider.
10. Mayowa would like to add a tab on the webpage for helping first year
student’s find forms and have their timelines more readily available. He
would also like to get feedback on how people’s first years went….things they
struggled with, ways the program’s first year could be improved, etc.
Attendance:
NAME
Stephanie Ander
POSITION
EMAIL ADDRESS
Present?
Member Year
Newsletter
1st year Rep
sta23@pitt.edu
No
andersenc@upmc.edu
atb231@pitt.edu
No
Yes
MVM Rep
MBSB Rep
1st Year Rep
Cell Bio Rep
bayerava@pitt.edu
Jcb122@pitt.edu
grb44@opitt.edu
mjc136@pitt.edu
No
Yes
No
Yes
apc10@pitt.edu
cucho@pitt.edu
Jad155@pitt.edu
ajd109@pitt.edu
Yes
Yes
No…Clare present
Yes
wae9@pitt.edu
No
Adetunji Feyomi
Clare Gauss
CTS Rep
IMM Rep
Grad Office
Biomed. Inf.
Rep
Publicity
Officer &
Webmaster
MGDB Rep
Grad Office
Adf42@pitt.edu
cgauss@medschool.pitt.edu
No
Yes
Rachael Gordon
WSMA Rep
No
Mondraya Howard
Lindsey Kelly
Yoojin Lee
MVM Rep
CMP Rep
MBSB Rep
Gordon.rachael@medstudent
.pitt.edu
moh16@pitt.edu
lmk66@pitt.edu
Yol40@pitt.edu
No
No
No
Greg Logan
President
logangre@pitt.edu
Yes
Courtney Andersen
Ademayowa
Balogun
Avi Bayer
Jennifer Boatz
Greg Buchan
Mike Calderon
Alexis Chidi
Agustin Cruz
Joyce D’Antonio
Amie Draper
Waleed Elsegeiny
1st
Abhishek Mandal
Chelsea Merkel
Nyla Naim
Puja Parekh
Venkatesan (Venky)
Raghaven
Mansi Shah
Abby Stahl
Ryan Staudt
Brooke Sullivan
Aliyah Weinstein
Marta Wells
Justin Wendzicki
Carol Williams
Alyce Anderson
Milesh Amatya
Treasurer
Events Officer
Pharm Rep
CNUP Rep
PIMB Rep
Abm66@pitt.edu
chm119@pitt.edu
nyn1@pitt.edu
pkp13@pitt.edu
ver12@pitt.edu
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
CNUP Rep
Events Officer
& CMP Rep
Member – 1st
Year
Secretary
GPSA Rep &
Webmaster
Comp Bio Rep
MVM Rep
Grad Office
mas184@pitt.edu
ecs40@pitt.edu
No
Yes
rps37@pitt.edu
No
bls96@pitt.edu
alw151@pitt.edu
Yes (final meeting)
Yes
mmw88@pitt.edu
jaw211@pitt.edu
cawillia@pitt.edu
Ajm197@pitt.edu
Nia25@pitt.edu
No
No
No
No
No