ACA SIG Officer Candidate 2021: Matthew (Matt) Mcleod

I am currently a post-doctoral fellow in the Thorne lab at Cornell University and have been a part of ACA since the beginning of my graduate degree in 2015. Even though I am working in the USA, I am Canadian born and bred and completed my undergraduate/graduate studies at the University of Waterloo, ON. In this position, I hope to maintain strong Canadian participation in future meetings and discussions by advocating for our members suggestions. Our national commitment to the ACA community has been an asset that I hope that we can continue.

Over the course of my participation in ACA meetings, I have seen a strong community that fosters young students and post-doctoral fellows development. In my tenure as President, I would like to maintain and grow this by working to get more students access to meetings through monetary incentives and encourage our early members to present posters. This focus will still allow Principle Investigators work to be presented and discussed, but will give early researchers the ability to gain vital research/communication skills. I know from personal experience the insight gained by being an active member of ACA has been impactful in my growth as a researcher and hope that more early academics can have this opportunity.

Finally, I believe my perspective as an young academic will be an asset to the ACA in a broader sense. I believe the pandemic has shown us the potential uses of leveraging online mediums to our benefit. I think the ACA is poised to further leverage the online tools available to create a stronger community that is active year round, as opposed to mostly during meetings. I would advocate for creating an online-community where researchers could ask technical/theoretical questions that others can help with, ask for mentorship advice, and build sub-communities (ex. reading groups) based upon interests. This new tool for ACA would maintain our great conversations that occur during meeting times throughout the year and would further accelerate the ACA’s learning and collaboration.

Thank you for your consideration.