My name is Kaylee Herzog, I am a doctoral candidate working with Dr. Kirsten Jensen at the University of Kansas, and I am the newly-elected student representative to ASP Council for the 2019–2020 academic year. The 2020 meeting of the ASP in Kansas City, Missouri will represent my eighth consecutive ASP meeting since I first presented a poster as an undergraduate in 2013. I truly consider the ASP to be my societal home, and thus I am honored and humbled to serve in this roll. I endeavor to earn the trust the membership has placed in me by dutifully advocating for students interests to the Society's leadership, and continuing to incorporate and improve student-relevant programming at our annual meetings. I would like to acknowledge the dedication, creativity, and enterprise of our 2018–2019 student representative, Dr. Christina Anaya, and seek to follow in her excellent example.
Over the next year, I endeavor to accomplish three main goals in my role as student representative. First, I will strive to establish a system of organizational memory for student representatives to all ASP committees to combat the confusion caused by the annual or biannual turnover that characterizes these positions. Second, I seek to organize an engaging student symposium that is of interest to all student members. Third, as part of my role on the Society’s Local Organizing Committee (LOC), I will work to ensure that skills workshops of broad interest are available at the 2020 meeting in Kansas City. The clinical parasitology workshop organized by Dr. Bobbi Pritt for our 2019 meeting in Rochester, Minnesota was incredibly well-received, and so I and the rest of the Kansas City LOC wish to ensure that hands-on workshops of interest to students become a yearly staple at ASP meetings. I seek to accomplish all three of these goals within a framework of promoting a Society that is seen by all students as welcoming and inclusive.
I look forward to beginning the work of student representative, and hope to see you all for what promises to be a spectacular meeting in Kansas City!