Virtual 2020 Annual Meeting

Welcome!

Virtual Meeting Taking Place

Greetings to all PAA members and participants in what is a terribly difficult time. We send our wishes and hopes for good health to all of you. This letter is about how we will try to maintain the survival of a strong intellectual PAA community through our Virtual PAA 2020.

About 6 weeks ago we composed a draft of this letter, welcoming you to Washington, DC, and listing the highlights of what we expected to be a “normal” PAA. Needless to say, there is nothing in that draft that describes the Virtual PAA 2020. For all of us, PAA is the highlight of our professional year and it’s terribly sad not to experience it the way we usually do.

We have worked hard with PAA staff to develop a virtual opportunity that will allow people who had planned to participate an opportunity to share their research. While we know this is a difficult time, and we have tried not to pressure anyone to participate in ways that make their lives more challenging. We also know there are some people who really want to experience some of the interaction that would normally take place at PAA. We hope this virtual experience will offer important opportunities to develop and maintain professional networks, even during this trying time.

Our virtual meeting allows any session chair organizer to host a virtual session at any time, although most will be on the days originally scheduled (April 23 – 25), or to host a session that is not at a given time and provides online access to material from presenters and discussants. Some of these sessions only include a subset of the original presentations. Any paper presenter, whether or not your session is hosted by a chair organizer, can upload materials to your session. Anyone giving a poster can upload materials into the originally scheduled poster session. We hope PAA members will attend sessions, view sessions and posters, read papers, and provide constructive feedback to participants. While the format is certain to suffer from the difficulty of developing a virtual approach in record time, we hope that many of you will participate and attend the Virtual PAA 2020, making it as vibrant an intellectual exchange as possible.

View list of real-time sessions.

View schedule of all sessions including asynchronous.

View Oral Sessions library                                   
View Posters library

Originally, we constructed a program with 266 oral sessions (including 38 flash sessions) and 1008 posters in 10 poster sessions. In total, 4,246 population scientists appeared on the program, indicating the tremendous interest in this PAA. In the end, we expect approximately 100 sessions organized in virtual fashion; we do not know how many posters will be presented, but hope the number will be large.

This is a new world for all of us and you will hear more from us throughout the year, as we try to continue virtual PAA activities and scientific interactions. The PAA organization is very strong, spirited, and passionate about supporting its membership. That energy is fueled by our remarkable membership. The PAA organization is comprised of an excellent staff, an involved and committed Board, and a set of committees with a large group of dedicated members, seeking to support the membership. With your engagement and help, we will adapt and emerge an even stronger community and organization.

We owe huge thanks to the PAA staff and board, PAA 2020 Program Committee, session organizers, poster selection team, PAA committees, and the entire membership.

Thank you for your patience and good will. Stay healthy and we hope to see you online!

Eileen Crimmins and Sara Curran
PAA 2020 Annual Meeting Co-Chairs

PAA Conference 2020