Hello everyone! It’s a real honor to have been elected as president of our society! I wanted to start my term by introducing myself to you all - I’m J9 Austin, and I’m a genetic counselor and professor of psychiatry and medical genetics at The University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. I not only study psychiatric conditions, I also live with a couple of them - depression and anxiety, specifically. So my interest in the work we do is very personal to me.

I have been coming to the meeting of this society since 1998, when I attended the WCPG meeting in Bonn - my first ever scientific conference - while I was doing my PhD in Cardiff. And the organization has had a special place for me ever since. I’ve served on the board for a number of years, most recently as VP, under the leadership of Jordan Smoller. 

I am the first non-man to serve as president of our society in its 30-year history, and the board that you have all just elected is the most diverse - across a number of axes (including identity, age, career stage, geography) - that we have ever had. I see this as a great step forward in terms of our ability to create an inclusive environment for facilitating and sharing the highest quality research in psychiatric genetics from around the world, and I am excited to work with this great group of people to continue to build the society into an entity that I hope we can all be proud to be affiliated with. As president, I will continue to advocate for broader inclusion at every level of the society for people of diverse backgrounds, ensure our sustainability as a society through financially responsible decision-making, and seek to provide a greater range of benefits for members.

I would like to invite you to engage with us - we would love to hear from you! If you have ideas to make our society better, please let us know - get in touch with me! You can see the kinds of things we are planning to work on in the coming year here. And, as well, I’d like to invite you to join us! Over time, I have served on several of our committees (Residency Education, Ethics, IDEA, Genetic Testing, and Membership), have co-chaired two of our meetings (2021 and 2023), and am a founder of our LGBTQIA2S+ interest group - I feel like I’ve helped make some really meaningful contributions and have met people and made friendships through these roles. If that sounds appealing, please look into joining one of our committees, join of one of our existing interest groups, or start a new interest group if there is one you would like to see that doesn’t yet exist.

We recently separated out membership fees from conference registration fees, and your membership provides not only discounted conference registration, but also access to recorded content from the conferences, and online members events throughout the year, so if you have not renewed yet, please do so here! I will look forward to seeing you in Mexico in October 2025 for our next WCPG meeting.