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SOPS hosted the family-friendly annual summer barbecue event on July 16th at the Shillito Park. Postdocs enjoyed free food and a chance to meet and make new friends while enjoying the summer weather. 

The GROW talks were organized as an extension of SOPS's  2021-2022 theme GROW (giving back, realizing research goals, opening your network and working with postdoc peers). The talks were every week for four weeks in June and comprised of four talks that were intended to help postdocs make the local and global connections that would maximize the positive impact of their work. The talks were also meant to educate postdocs on the professional development resources available to them at UK. 

In Spring 2022, SOPS organized a free virtual book club for postdocs. The book club's participants read Safi Bahcall's "Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries," which book explores group dynamics, collaboration, innovation, and how small changes in structure affect the spread of breakthrough ideas. The book club was run as two parallel sessions with SOPS's Krishnaroop Chaudhuri and Phyllis Johnson leading each. Through the book club, participants learnt and discussed the development of wild innovations through history - in business, technology, medicine, and politics, and it was a great opportunity for many to get back into reading after a long time!

This year, SOPS launched its first International Subcommittee. 61% of UK postdocs (as of February 2022) are from countries other than the USA. The subocommittee was headed by Dr. Namrata Anand (SOPS vice president) and included Drs. Adnan Darwish Ahmad, Bruno C. Menarim, Sourav Saha, Maware, Catherine, Mark J. Rzeszutek, Erome Daniel Hankore. The Director of the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs was also a member of this committee.  

The space created by this subcommittee allowed international postdocs the opportunity to discuss various topics, including how international postdoc scholars at UK can access funding by focusing on fellowships available to nonresident scholars. This subcommittee is also why SOPS is including the unique Global Impacts Poster Session event at the upcoming SOPS 2022 Annual Research & Career Symposium. SOPS extends its gratitude to those who volunteered their time and energy to this subcommittee.

The SOPS Holiday Social, was held on December 4th from 4:00-7:00 PM at the atrium of the Lee T. Todd Jr. Building. Postdocs from across the UK campus came together to decorate Christmas tree ornaments and cookies, win prizes, enjoy a pizza dinner and have some good holiday fun! 

The Society of Postdoctoral Scholars (SOPS) at the University of Kentucky (UK) hosted their Annual Research & Career Symposium in September 2021 as a hybrid event to showcase the work of UK postdoctoral scholars and fellows, promote networking among the UK research community, and encourage discussions on career paths for postdocs and PhD students. We encourage you to visit the SOPS 2021 Annual Research & Symposium page and listen to the research talks of our postdocs and to the keynote talk by Prof. Carl Bergstrom on "Fighting the Infodemic: How quantitative misinformation misleads the public, and what scientists can do about it."