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Nominations of Candidates for Board of Directors election

If you are interested in serving on the board of directors of the WFSJ, we encourage you to check your eligibility and then seek nomination with one of our full member associations. Nominations are open to any science journalist belonging to a Full Member association of the WFSJ provided their country of residence/citizenship is not already represented by a current board member. We seek science journalists of good standing that are passionate about positively contributing to the WFSJ board and organization. We are also seeking a board with diverse regional and gender representation. 

The election will expand our board by adding four new members to our roster of continuing members: Joseph Mbeng Boum (he/him) Cameroon, Lesley Evans Ogden (she/her) Canada, Jean Marc Fleury (he/him) Canada, Chhatra Karki (he/him) Nepal, Ben Deighton (he/him) UK.  

A reminder that two Canadian representatives are required on the Board of Directors by law to maintain WFSJ’s charitable status in Canada where the organization was founded and is officially registered. Under Canadian law, two Canadians must be present at all WFSJ board meetings for quorum. 

Nominations can be sent to WFSJNomCom@gmail.com by 23:59 UTC on Friday October 4. Those seeking nomination must provide a CV (including contact email), letter of intent (maximum 600 words) highlighting skills, experience, gender identity, anticipated contributions to the board, how they would promote the Federation’s founding values of kindness and collaboration, and their vision for the Federation. Candidates are asked to submit a photograph and two letters of recommendations — one from a senior member of their national association — and two examples of their work, plus meeting minutes that show that their candidature has been supported by the board of their national association. The Nomination Committee will contact any individuals if there are issues with their applications and allow them five days to provide any missing information. Candidates for the election will be announced at 0900 UTC on Monday 21 October, after which the voting phase will begin.

Candidate manifestos, documents and their contact details will be emailed to voting representatives, with voting members encouraged to ask questions of candidates via email. Voting members will be asked to choose four candidates. The deadline for the first voting phase is 23:59 UTC Friday 1st November. Voting instructions will be sent to all full members. 

We thank the Nominating Committee Lisbeth Fog (Colombia), Diran Onifade (Nigeria) and Pallab Ghosh (UK) for volunteering their time, on top of working as busy full time science journalists, to enable a smooth, transparent, trustworthy election process. The nomination committee can be reached for any questions at: WFSJNomCom@gmail.com