Dear ASM Maryland Branch Members,

As the current President of the Maryland Branch, I would like to welcome all of you to an exciting new year with the 2025-2026 series of ASM Maryland Branch meetings. It is my honor to serve as President for this year.

Maryland is the home of many esteemed universities, hospitals, state and federal governmental agencies, and biotechnological corporations, which employ, educate and train many of our members. We are a diverse group representing various backgrounds including microbiology, virology, immunology, medicine, public health, environmental science and engineering, biotechnology, bioinformatics, and science policy. To serve our members’ interests, build community and provide current scientific information on emerging topics, we host a series of dinner meetings each year as well as events dedicated to student experiences. The dinner meetings start with a social hour, where we encourage all attendees to arrive early to engage and network.

Dinner meetings.
For last year’s 2024-25 season, we hosted four dinner meetings with an average of 91 attendees, which was a 16% increase in attendance over an already strong year 2023-24! Almost 37% of our attendees last year were registered members of ASM Maryland branch, 45% were students and 18% were non-members. We’re excited about the energy that everyone brings to our Branch events.

We have another engaging meeting line-up for the 2025-26 season.

First Meeting Our first meeting will be Wednesday, October 15th, 2025, at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), in the Skylight Room of The Commons Building. Our keynote speaker. Dr. Alexander McAdam, MD, PhD, D(ABMM) is currently the Chief, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Havard Medical School and 2025-2026 President of the American Society for Microbiology. The title of his presentation is “Landmarks in Clinical Microbiology: an Editor's Perspective” This meeting will also showcase a special exhibit of the ASM Archives.

Second Meeting Our second meeting will be on Monday, February 23rd, 2026, at the University of Maryland Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET), Baltimore. Our distinguished speaker will be Dr. Djikolngar Maouyo, PhD. He is the CEO of IMET incubator start-up PyroDex LLC. The title of Dr. Maouyo’s presentation will be “Out of the Endotoxin Box: Addressing Pyrogen Diversity Challenges Using the Monocyte Activation Test (MAT).”

Third Meeting Our third meeting will be in April 2026. This meeting will feature our ASM Distinguished Lecturer. The date, topic and venue are yet to be determined.

Fourth Meeting Our fourth and last meeting of the year will be our annual student oral and poster presentation meeting at the Medical School Teaching Facility (MSTF) Atrium, 1st Floor; University of Maryland-Baltimore, 685 W. Baltimore Street, Baltimore, on June 1st, 2026, right before the ASM Microbe Meeting in Washington DC. For this meeting, undergraduate and graduate students will submit abstracts of their current research, the top abstracts will be selected as winners of the J. Howard Brown Award and these students will give oral presentations of their work. All submitters including non-student members are encouraged to present their research as posters at this meeting as well. Shortly after the poster session, a downloadable PDF listing authors, titles, and institutions for posters presented will be available on the Branch website, suitable for citing, attaching, or linking to in resumes, CVs, or on social media.

Awards for ASM Maryland Branch members
The ASM Maryland Branch each year honors several microbiologists by issuing the following awards:

Barnett Cohen Award. This award is presented to a professional microbiologist in recognition of their contributions, devotion, and interest in promoting the science of microbiology. This award was established in memory of Dr. Cohen in 1954. Dr. Cohen was president of the Branch in 1942, and president of the national society in 1950.

Richard S. Schwalbe Award. This award is presented to an outstanding bench microbiologist, who possesses those professional qualities embodied by Rick Schwalbe: superior performance in clinical microbiology, willingness to train and share knowledge, scientific curiosity, and a constant striving for excellence. This award was established in 2000 to honor the memory of Dr. Richard S. Schwalbe, former president of the Maryland Branch of ASM.

J. Howard Brown Awards. These awards are presented to outstanding graduate and undergraduate students who are making contributions worthy of recognition in the field of microbiology. This award was established in memory of J. Howard Brown in 1954. These awards are issued at the annual student symposium in May/June prior to the ASM Microbe meeting.

Peggy Cotter Awards. These awards are presented to Early Career Branch Members (defined as up to 15 years beyond terminal degree) and must be used for participation in the annual ASM Microbe meeting.

Board of Directors
ASM Maryland Branch meetings are largely possible due to the efforts of our Board of Directors, who are all volunteering their time for the branch activities. I would like to thank the 2024-25 Board and particularly President Michelle Snyder, Towson University for her leadership and initiatives the past year (she will serve as past-President) as well as Jim Kaper who served as our Councilor and will has agreed to serve as our Branch Advisory Council member. We welcome President-Elect Anne Estes, Towson University. We are also fortunate to have Monica Smith (Treasurer) and Richard Pfeltz (Secretary) continuing to serve in their roles – Thank you. We would also like to thank Birthe Kjellerup, Bob Ernst, Paul Luethy, Nick Carbonetti and Jenn Kerr for continuing to serve the ASM Maryland Branch as members of the Board of Directors. The Board would like to encourage all members to reach out to us with suggestions, ideas, questions, and feedback at asmmaryland@gmail.com.

ASM Membership
We invite both members and non-members of the ASM Maryland Branch and National ASM organization to visit the Branch website (https://www.asmmdbranch.com/), which contains information about the three Maryland Branch awards (Barnett Cohen, Richard S. Schwalbe, and J. Howard Brown Awards) and information about the four upcoming meetings. Branches of ASM are the foundation of the National organization and play an important role in ASM’s functionality. As such, the ASM Maryland Branch membership is open to the general public with the only requirement being an interest in microbiology. Branch memberships are only $20 for Full, $5 for Student (With this $5, you are eligible to be considered for J. Howard Brown Awards) and free for Emeritus memberships. We encourage those who would become members locally to also become members of the National ASM organization. Through National ASM (www.asm.org), you may choose to be a Supporting, Contributing, or Premium member, with Contributing and Premium members eligible for discounts to national conferences and meetings as well as discounts on journals and educational materials. For current students and post-doctoral scholars, the National ASM organization continues to offer discounted membership.

Together with the rest of the Board of Directors, I’m looking forward to the many exciting activities that we have planned for the ASM Maryland Branch this year. We can’t wait to see you at our next meeting. Please feel free to bring a colleague and/or a friend to the meetings this year – we are excited to welcome everybody.

Sincerely,

Muyideen Haruna, PhD, FIBMS, MLS(ASCPi)CM
President 2025-2026
American Society for Microbiology, Maryland Branch
asmmaryland@gmail.com