We're delighted that more and more SEA institutions are coming together to host regional SEA symposia. In 2016-2017, 5 regional symposia were held, attended by students and faculty from 17 SEA institutions. Regional symposia offer many benefits, including more opportunities for students and faculty to network, collaborate, and present their research. HHMI is pleased to offer moderate contribution to help offset the costs of hosting these meetings.

Below is a list of considerations and recommendations as you plan for your regional symposium.

• Participants: Identify SEA faculty from nearby SEA institutions that may be interested in hosting and/or participating in a regional symposium. A list of SEA institutions, sortable by location, is available at www.seaphages.org/institutions. The hosting institution should determine the number of participants that can be accommodated for the meeting, reserving appropriate space for talks, posters, meals, and other planned activities.
• Date and Time: Begin planning early. Set a date for the meeting, taking into consideration when students will have gathered sufficient data to present or to work on collaboratively, as well as end of year events, including final exams, the Annual SEA Symposium, and the summer break. Start and end times for the symposium should accommodate travel time to and from the meeting.
• Agenda: Past regional meetings have included a keynote presentation by an invited speaker, talks by SEA faculty, talks and posters by individual and/or teams of students, poster sessions, and activities such as a Genome Annotation Hackathon. Poster sessions and breaks are great opportunities for students to interact and network.
• Collaboration: Early symposium planning provides opportunities for regional schools to collaborate. For examples, participating schools may choose to work of different Actinobacterial hosts followed by a collaborative host-range project, or working collaboratively on a common Actinobacterial host and varying isolation strategies.
• Costs: Meeting costs include travel expenses, poster printing, meals, and keynote honorarium.

Request for HHMI support

To request for moderate financial support from HHMI to offset some of the costs associated with a regional symposium, email SEA@hhmi.org with a brief Letter of Intent that includes:

• the list of participating institutions and anticipated number of attendees
• a draft agenda
• a draft budget

Once a meeting date has been set, and an agenda finalzed, we will be happy to post this information on seaphages.org to promote your meeting.