Call For Pre-Proposals 2023

2023 HBA Meeting: Reno, April 19-21 at the Peppermill Resort Hotel.

We are inviting pre-proposals for the Plenary session and Place Based session. Please see the specific details below.

Plenary session and Pearl Memorial Lecturer

We are inviting pre-proposals for the 2023 Plenary Session and Pearl Memorial Lecturer, centerpieces of our annual meetings. Please submit your ideas for innovative proposals to Gillian Ice, Program Chair by August 15, 2022 at: hbaprogram@ohio.edu

Your pre-proposal must include the following:

The most successful Plenary topics are cutting-edge or reflect new directions in human biology research with clear connections among the presentations and to the Plenary’s theme. A small amount of overlap among presentations is preferable to unrelated presentations. Either broad, multidisciplinary themes with a human biology perspective, or narrow themes representing new breakthroughs are welcomed. Each Plenary speaker is allotted 30 minutes, including a brief introduction by the president and Plenary chair and 5-10 minutes for questions and discussion, and a 15-minute coffee break. The total session will be no longer than 4.5 hours. The Pearl Memorial Lecture is 60 minutes, including introduction and questions/discussion. The accepted Plenary Session will be scheduled on the first afternoon of the meeting (Wednesday). Recent Plenary/Pearl themes are listed below. Many plenary organizers follow-up on the conference session by submitting a proposal on the topic for a special issue of the American Journal of Human Biology.

We encourage participation by international and non-members in the Plenary. HBA provides gratis registration, luncheon, and dinner reception fees for each of the non-member speakers. We also have a modest grant from Wiley Press to cover the travel expenses of non-member Plenary speakers (up to $2500 for all speakers combined) and the Pearl Memorial Lecturer (up to $2500). Plenary organizers should carefully consider how they would distribute HBA funds among the Plenary and Pearl speakers. Organizers should contact the Program Chair about the distribution of funds and ways to seek additional outside funding if expenses are likely to be over $5000. Requests for additional funds from HBA must be made to the Program Chair at the time of proposal submission. Additional details regarding available funds and covered expenses will be sent to organizers at the time of selection.

See recent HBA Plenary Sessions here.

Place Based Human Biology

We are inviting pre-proposals for the 2023 Human Biology in Place session. This session is intended to promote researchers outside of the US who focus on research in their home countries. This is a new element of the meeting, with the first two years highlighting Mexico in 2021 and Argentina and Uruguay in 2022. The session should be led by a chair, who manages submissions, works with the program chair to establish review process, and supports any translation needs. Typically, the session involves six 20-minute podium papers, and an unlimited number of posters and is held on Friday morning of the annual conference. The session will be held in hybrid format and can be presented in person, on the Shindig platform or as a combination of formats. Please submit your proposal to Gillian Ice, Program Chair by August 15, 2022 at: hbaprogram@ohio.edu.

The proposal should include a brief statement describing the focus of the session, abstract recruitment plan, any translation needs, and proposed review chair.

Important dates

Please submit your proposals by August 15, 2022. Pre-proposals will be reviewed by the Program Committee and Executive Committee (EC). The organizer of the pre-proposal selected for further consideration will then be notified by August 30th and asked to submit a full proposal by September 30th for final approval by the EC.

We look forward to your input!