Published on: 13-08-2024
Dear TIAFT members,
It has been a packed sporting agenda over the last few months; the Euros (congratulations to Spain), the Tour De France, the British Open and now the Olympics in Paris. Our colleagues in the doping field will have been terribly busy over this period!
Now it is time for our toxicologists to “go for gold” and perform at the Annual Meeting of TIAFT in Switzerland! We are just weeks away from meeting in St Gallen. Plans are almost finalized by Jochen and his team, for what promises to be a terrific scientific meeting.
The candidates for the upcoming election for the TIAFT Board have been finalized.
Members will be able to vote from August 23rd until September 6th. Voting will cease just before the business meeting in St Gallen and the newly elected board will be announced thereafter. The list of open positions and nominated candidates are as follows:
President Elect
- Sarah Wille (Belgium)
- Nikolas Lemos (USA)
Secretary
- Sumandeep Rana (USA)
- Simona Pichini (Italy)
- José Restolho (Portugal)
Treasurer
- Christophe Stove (Belgium)
Board Member -Asia
- Serap Annette Akgür (Türkiye)
- Ping Xiang (China)
- Ruri Kikura-Hanajiri (Japan)
- Yi Ju Yao (Singapore)
Board Member Africa
- Younes Zebbiche (Algeria)
- Sara Abdennour (Algeria)
Board Member Europe
- Maria A. Martinez (Spain)
- Jean-Claude Alvarez (France)
- Chinyere M. Williams (UK)
Board Member Oceania
- Jennifer Schumann (Australia)
Board Member North America
- Marta Concheiro-Guisan (USA)
- Luke Rodda (USA)
Board Member South America (includes Latin America and the Caribbean)
- Eleuterio Umpiérrez (Uruguay)
- Jose Luiz Da Costa (Brazil)
Good luck to all candidates! As a reminder, the position of TIAFT President will go to the current President-Elect, Simon Elliott, and I (DG) will become the Past-President.
Marc LeBeau and Carmen Jurado will be retiring from the TIAFT Board after many years of dedicated service.
This leads me nicely into my last message as President of TIAFT. My connection with TIAFT goes back to 1993 when as a young PhD student, I travelled to Leipzig with my VIFM colleagues to present our research. Notable people such as Fred Rieders, Rokus De Zeeuw and others were in the small auditorium at my first TIAFT meeting, organized by the late Klaus Muller. It was a small gathering of scientists of less than 200 people (compared with over 800 last year) but I remember that meeting very well. It was the start of my journey as a forensic toxicologist. Fast forward to 2001 in Prague and I met two people who would end up being colleagues and fellow board members but also exceptionally good friends - Carmen Jurado and Marc LeBeau.
Carmen Jurado and me, Romania, 2017.
Carmen has been the secretary of TIAFT for two terms from 2018-2024. A total of 7 years (extra year due to Covid19) in addition to her two terms as a board member from 2011-2017. Carmen joined TIAFT in 1982 and was a founding member of the Young Scientists Committee (YSC, 1996-2002) and served as the Regional Representative for Spain (2004-2018). As many of you know, Carmen has retired from her professional position from the Ministry of Justice in Spain but remains active in TIAFT – in fact, her morning ritual nowadays is coffee, a small breakfast and then answering emails from TIAFT members in the beautiful city of Marbella, located southern Spain’s Costa del Sol. It is quite amazing to think of how much Carmen has contributed to TIAFT; the many hundreds, if not thousands of hours of service dedicated to the association. This includes all the online monthly meetings, the in-person board meetings, the Regional Representatives meetings, the detailed minutes of every single meeting as well as handling a database and queries from more than 2000 members spanning over 65 countries. Carmen has also contributed to our discipline and has done a tremendous amount of work with the detection of drugs in hair. Carmen was one of the founders of the Society of Hair Testing (SOHT) in 2002 and went on to serve as secretary until 2004, before becoming President of SOHT from 2004-2008.
Carmen is known for her knowledge of gin and all things Spanish- in fact, Carmen often explained to fellow board members in detail, that almost everything is better in Spain; having travelled to Spain many times - it is hard to disagree. I will miss her organizational skills, her support, and her willingness to always do what is right for TIAFT. As an association we have been fortunate to have had Carmen serve as our secretary - she has done a tremendous job; I (we) cannot thank her enough.
As for Marc LeBeau - well sadly (for us, but not for him) his time on the board comes to end in St Gallen. There is no doubt in my mind that he is the single biggest reason for the modernization of TIAFT primarily due to Marc’s long-term plan of improving our processes, establishing policies where there were few, regulating our financial requirements and demanding of Board members to fulfill their roles and expectations. Marc set up committees, revised the constitution, instigated online voting, made everything more equitable and accessible and navigated the association through Covid. We celebrated our first, full online TIAFT meeting concluding his term as President in 2022, something we organized in the short space of 6 months!
Marc has been on the TIAFT board since 2008 – it’s an amazing achievement, having served as a Board Member, Treasurer, President-Elect, President, and now the Immediate Past-President; he also served on several committees, including the YSC. One must wonder.... How did he do this? And if you stop to consider his other commitments to the Society of Forensic Toxicologists (SOFT), serving as Commissioner on the National Commission on Forensic Science (USA); chairman of the Scientific Working Group on the Forensic Analysis of Chemical Terrorism (SWGFACT), and co-chair to the Scientific Working Group on the Forensic Analysis on Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Terrorism (SWGCBRN), you wonder how?
In his “spare” time, he also served as co-chair of the Scientific Working Group for Forensic Toxicology (SWGTOX); he lead the Toxicology Subcommittee of the Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) for five years, but wait there is more...he is currently the Chair of the Seized Drugs and Toxicology Scientific Area Committee (OSAC) and Chair of the AAFS Standards Board’s Toxicology Consensus Body. And the thousands of lectures and training hours to fellow toxicologists, prosecutors and other professionals (I feel exhausted!) in his capacity as Senior Scientist at the FBI Laboratory (no small task!)
Not only has he contributed to TIAFT, but he has also strengthened our discipline in ways that cannot be measured by a H-index or impact factors – it's impossible to fully appreciate his contribution to forensic toxicology. Marc has paved the way for the TIAFT to be secure, organized and responsive to its members. But I am lucky enough to call him my good buddy and friend. He has always been a pillar of support and available for advice. I will miss him on the board and only hope that I have upheld my responsibilities as best I can.
Marc and Janice LeBeau and me, Versailles, 2022.
On a final note, it has been a pleasure to serve as TIAFT president. I have given as much as I can over the last three years and hopefully, I have made a difference and aided to improve TIAFT. This board has achieved several tangible improvements for the association including a reassessment of membership roles; better defining the expectations of regional representatives and members; improving our links with colleagues around the world; improving our member benefits; and for the first time offering true worldwide representation for our membership by expanding our board. My sincere thanks to my fellow board members Christophe, Sarah, Nikolas, Jean- Claude and last but not least, my other good friend Simon – who will be a terrific President for TIAFT, I have no doubt. I wish him and the new board all the best.
It would be remiss of me not to mention my own supporters from my workplace who have enabled my professional development (especially Olaf Drummer and Noel Woodford, toxicologists at the VIFM) but also of my beautiful family - Maria, Christos and Eleni. Thank you.
See you in St Gallen!
Dimitri Gerostamoulos,
President
The International Association of Forensic Toxicologists
www.tiaft.org