2 MARCH 2015 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WAS.ORG President’s Column I write this on my long flight home from another successful WAS conference, Aquaculture America, held in New Orleans (Feb 20-22). This conference was well attended, with nearly 2000 participants, and a strong and diverse program. Particularly encouraging was the strong student representation, evidenced by the exceptionally well-attended student reception. (I counted nearly 200 students at the event.) The US Chapter of WAS (USAS) focuses heavily on student events as it recognizes students as the future of the Society and a driver for future growth. Throughout WAS, we try to invest in engaging students through sponsorship, awards and student-targeted events. I would particularly like to acknowledge the contributions of Chris Green, who works hard as Chair of the WAS Student Activities Committee to facilitate a wide range of creative student awards and events. I chaired the mid-year meeting of the WAS Board of Directors after the conference. We reviewed progress on some key issues and moved forward with some initiatives that are summarized here. Chapter Secretariats Chapter Secretariats have been initiated and Executive Officers (EO) appointed for both APC and LACC chapters, with both starting work late last year. It is too early to effectively gauge the impact of the secretariats but it is already evident that the presence of the EOs on the ground is increasing visibility and the scope of activities of chapters. The APC has already held two regional meetings in India and Iran, attracting nearly 200 new members. The new APC-EO (Genie) greatly facilitated the organization of these meetings. The EO of LACC (Nash) was able to attend part of the mid-year Board meeting, helping her along the steep learning curve to understand the policies and procedures of the Society. There was a general feeling that the secretariats will have a positive impact on the Chapters and the Society. The Chapters are committed to reporting a number of performance indicators related to the new secretariats. We welcome any feedback from Chapter members on their interactions with the new secretariats. Journal Reinvigoration We are now in the final throes of the selection process for an Executive Editor of the journal and we hope to have an announcement within a month. There is very active discussion among the Publications Committee and the Board about the future of the journal and how to improve its quality, especially its impact factor that, like it or loath it, appears set to remain as the main performance indicator for any journal. Personally I believe that it’s long overdue that universities and governments address the issue of the over-reliance on this imperfect measure of research ‘quality,’ especially in applied science. Equally important though is how JWAS can effectively differentiate itself from competing journals and there has been a lot of good discussion around this issue and some interesting ideas under discussion. Again we welcome input from members about what would stimulate you to publish quality work in JWAS and of course to read the journal. The Board also agreed to continue with the printed version of the journal for the time being. Contents (continued) Society 2 President’s Column 3 Editor’s Note 4 USAS Report 4 Korean Chapter Report 5 Asian Pacific Chapter Report 5 Latin American and Caribbean Chapter Report 70 Conference Calendar 71 Future Conferences and Expositions 72 Advertisers’ Index 72 Membership Application (CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE) YOU COULD BE MISSING OUT ON IMPORTANT INFORMATION Please take a moment to add wascommunication@was.org and judya@was.org to your approved sender’s list so that you do not miss out on any important information regarding the World Aquaculture Societay and your WAS membership. Many of you may not be aware that your email is not being received due to a permission or security issue. It may have been rejected by a moderator, the address may only accept email from certain senders, or another restriction.
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