2020 PSA President's Welcome

August 10, 2020 | by Sam Shafer

Hello Poultry Science friends and colleagues. It is my honor to serve as your President this 2020-2021 year. We have many exciting things to look forward to this year, and I am excited to have the opportunity to work with the PSA staff and Board to ensure a successful year for our organization. I have been a part of the Poultry Science Association since graduate school and have previously served on the Board of Directors, volunteered my time as an Associate Editor, and served on many of our committees. Being a part of the Poultry Science Association has led to my successful career and has allowed me to form many long-lasting friendships. It has truly become my home away from home.

I would like to thank the Past President, Don McIntyre, the 2019-2020 Executive Committee and Board of Directors and all the PSA staff for a great finish to the year. The numbers are in and it is official – the 2020, first virtual PSA meeting, was a great success. We had 1,139 registrations, with over 400 registrants from industry, over 300 student attendees, more than 500 attendees from the United State and over 350 international registrants. The average time spent in the meeting was over 22 hours and we had 32, 604 unique content views and 3,772 webinar views. The PSA staff and Board of Directors worked extremely hard and quickly to make this first ever virtual meeting a huge success. Thank you to everyone for supporting and attending the meeting.

This year we have some exciting new projects planned. We will be completing the Strategic Planning initiative and will develop short and long-term goals to continue to be the world’s most respected resource for the poultry sciences. In addition, I would like to help broaden the impact of the society by fostering new collaborations, improving membership, acknowledging people’s contributions, and making the society more relevant to the global agricultural community all while fostering friendships, increasing support networks and having fun.

In order to continue being an international society dedicated to advancing the discovery, dissemination, and application of knowledge in the poultry sciences, we must rely on everyone in our society to contribute their time and strengths. I want to thank everyone for being productive contributors to our association to ensure our continued success. With the change to open access for our journals last year, we can reach more people with our publication and readily contribute to the growth of the poultry industry and the development of safer and more nutritious food products for the consumer. In addition, our journals continue to remain major contributors to the poultry meat and egg industries. These positive impacts to our industry and to our global society reflect our hard work and dedication to poultry science. We could not have achieved all that we did in 2019-2020 without everyone’s continued effort. Thank you for your selfless service.

I am looking forward to the 2021 Poultry Science Association meeting, July 19-22, in Omaha Nebraska. Until then, please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments. This year has definitely been challenging for everyone and my hope that each of you stay safe and healthy. It is a great honor to serve as President and give back everything the Poultry Science Association has provided to me both personally and professionally.

Christine Alvarado
PSA President 2020-2021