Candidate for Councilor-at-Large
Lindsey Burbank
United States Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service
Leadership Experience
My membership and participation in APS began in 2010 when I was a graduate student at the University of California, Riverside. APS was my introduction to the role of professional societies in networking, career development, and professional resources and community. I have since spent my whole career in public service, currently as a research plant pathologist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service in the San Joaquin Valley of California. At all stages, APS programs and members have given me the guidance, career development, and professional connections that I rely on every day. APS was also my introduction to professional leadership when I served as the Bacteriology Committee chair during 2019–2020. That year, specifically, was a challenging time to lead, as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted normal activities and meetings, and maintaining community required new and different approaches. However, those challenges increased my motivation to invest in professional society activities and leadership, as it became clear how important these organizations are for sustaining and improving our profession. Currently, I serve as a senior editor for APS PRESS and as an associate editor for Phytopathology. I am a strong supporter of APS journals as an author and reviewer, with half the research papers in my career published in APS journals. In addition to plant pathology, my research overlaps other scientific disciplines, and I have also been actively involved with the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), where I served as a member of the Council on Microbial Sciences from 2023 to 2025. The ASM council role is very similar to that of APS councilor-at-large, as it is a scientific and strategic advisory role serving as a liaison between members and society leaders. As a plant pathologist, my goal in joining the ASM council was to increase representation of agriculture and plant microbiology interests within the greater microbiology community and within ASM. I learned many things from my time serving in ASM leadership that I would bring to serve APS—most notably the role of persistence, adaptation, and advocacy in meeting the challenges we now face as a profession and as a greater scientific community.
Statement of Vision for APS
I want to serve the plant health community by helping to ensure that our society meets members’ needs and remains a sustainable and powerful entity in driving scientific advancement and policy decisions. My vision for supporting the APS strategic goals is largely influenced by my experience in public service and in professional society leadership.
Goal A: Advancements in plant health science are accelerated through professional collaboration.
I want to bring my experience and connections from serving in leadership roles with other organizations such as ASM to expand collaboration more broadly between APS and other scientific fields. Increased collaboration across sectors will help to make the voice of plant health experts heard and facilitate the cutting edge research that we need to solve the challenges of environmental destruction, food security, and climate change. Other scientific professions are facing the same challenges as plant pathology, and we can learn a great deal from strategies (and sometimes missteps) of other professional organizations. We as APS members are important in the larger picture of scientific advancement, and I hope to bring my professional leadership experience to help promote the plant health disciplines in a broader context.
Goal B: A growing workforce has the skills necessary to ensure sustainable plant health.
Professional societies, including APS, have been instrumental in my career progression. I would not be where I am today as a plant pathology professional without the resources, training, and connections I made through APS. Throughout my career, I have worked to train and support the upcoming generations of plant health professionals, both through formal mentoring programs and individual interactions. I truly believe that our success as professionals is dependent on sharing accumulated resources and knowledge with the next generations, as well as on embracing new ideas and ways of doing things as the world changes. The world of today is different from the world in which I started my education and training 20 years ago, and the pace of change is accelerating. Meeting these challenges requires that we all offer what we can to support the future of the work that we do and the people who will carry it forward. I hope to work with APS to support training and professional development across the range of sectors that benefit from plant health expertise.
Goal C: Our science impacts decisions leading to a sustainable future.
Professional societies provide collective bargaining power to influence policy decisions. In an environment where government and public support for science across all sectors is eroding, it is more important than ever to work collaboratively for a sustainable future. Sometimes this requires that we step outside our scientific work and consider our role in the larger social context. Plant health research of all kinds is essential for food security, sustainability, and mitigation of environmental and climate crises around the world. APS members are the experts in this area, and it is important to use this expertise to advocate for concrete solutions to real-world problems. It is equally important for APS as a collective to be visible in support of all society members, as well as the work they do around the world.
