My wife & kids hope to be by the sea while I’m ASA-ing. (Photo by MarkMartins)

We’re a little over a week away from the American Scientific Affiliation annual meeting at Gordon College. I’m really excited to meet new friends, put faces to names I’ve only talked to online, and catch up with some long-time friends as well. If you’re reading this and will be at the meeting, I hope I get to see you too. Getting a chance to chat face-to-face is a big reason I’m making the trip to Massachusetts. To make those meetings easier, here is my schedule. And also feel free to come up and say ‘hi’ at any other time during the conference as well.

Friday, July 27

• Not an actual ASA event, but I will be speaking about The Genome Made Flesh at MIT in W20 Stratton Student Centre at 7:30pm to the InterVarsity graduate student fellowship. If you’re in the area or able to make it into Boston, you’re welcome to drop by.

Saturday, July 28

• 10:15-10:45am: ESN is organizing a track for students and early career scholars. I’ll be on the panel for Now What? Choosing Next Career Steps.
• 11:15-11:45am: I’ll be one of the mentors during Speed Mentoring for Undergraduates.
• 11:45am-1:15pm: I’ll be at the Student/Early Career Lunch Meetup.
• 2:45-3:45pm: I’ll be hanging out at the Hendrickson table signing my book Faith across the Multiverse and chatting about whatever folks want to chat about. Hendrickson representatives will be around all day Saturday and Monday, selling the book for a 50% (!) discount.

Sunday, July 29

• 3:15-3:45pm: I’ll be giving a talk Beaming Science Fiction into the Science and Faith Conversation.
• 5:30pm: Can I resist a volleyball tournament? History suggests ‘no’.
• 9:30pm: I’ll be at the InterVarsity Reception with another chance to win a free copy of Faith across the Multiverse.

Phew! That’s going to be a busy weekend. And that’s just a sampling of all the great stuff going on during the conference. Some other highlights:

• The Friday workshop on Reworking the Science of Adam organized by S. Joshua Swamidass, moderated by Jeff Schloss, and with panelists including Stephen Schaffner, Greg Cootsona, Ted Davis, and Tom McCall.
• The whole ESN track on Saturday for students and early career scholars is one great panel after another that I expect will be full of practical career advice. I’m hoping to learn some good tips myself.
• The Big Picture session with topics like theodicy and Generation Z apologetics sounds intriguing.
• The list of speakers for the Evolutionary Ideas track on Sunday and Monday includes Denis Lamoureux, Randy Isaac, James Stump, Sy Garte, and David Buller. That one looks right up my alley.

You can find the full schedule here so you can see everything the conference has to offer.

Ask for it by name, if your local bookstore doesn’t have it on the shelf.

There are still travel scholarships for students and postdocts (application here), and students can still apply for a lodging & meals scholarship; combined with the free-for-all-students registration, that’s a good deal. And the one-day ticket for student that includes Saturday meals and the Francis Collins lecture is also available. All those details for the lodging & meals scholarships and Saturday ticket deal can be found here.

And don’t forget that the student group with the most attendees at the conference will take home three (3) copies of my new book, Faith across the Multiverse, available now!