Thanks everyone for bringing your A game to Durham this year. This year’s MASMC was a huge success with with over 120 participants and a record 50 presentations (20 talks/30 posters). Most of the presentations were by students attending their first scientific meeting – the quality was outstanding.
This year’s meeting was special for many reasons, including a large contingent of former Duke students and postdocs who returned with fond memories of their glory days at Duke. (Most of them came for Rytasfest, a separate event held the previous day celebrating 40 years of the Vilgalys mycology lab at Duke). I was especially pleased to see so many new students come to this year’s meeting from smaller colleges and universities, as well as citizen scientists from area mushroom clubs.
Weather for Saturday’s talks was excellent, allowing participants to spread out over the French Science Center plaza. Sunday’s morel foray in the Duke Forest was also big hit in spite of advancing rain and cold front. Thanks to Joe Heitman for building a fire which prevented some of us from getting hypothermia! In spite of no morels being found (a serious problem in the Piedmont), we still managed to find over 20 species of interesting fungi growing around the forest.
Thanks to a generous donation from Dr. Jenny Lodge (VP of Research), this year’s meetings were also free to all who came. Overall, a great success. Long live MASMC!!
Below are some photo highlights of MASMC2024. Thanks everyone for making these meetings so special! Much love to you all, Rytas V
