There were 25 biannual Phage meetings at The Evergreen State College. The last was held in 2023. Dr. Betty Kutter was the organizer for all meetings until her retirement. The bacteriophage meetings have now been picked up by others in the microbiology community.
The 2025 meeting will run Aug 3 to 7 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Information is here: https://evergreen.phage.directory and also here: https://www.facebook.com/evergreenphage
Participants include more than scientists! Many have been educators or just “regular folks” who are interested in either microbiology or the practical applications of bacteriophage in health and industrial settings.
There are lectures and talks, and poster sessions where you can talk to people who are doing the research in an informal setting. Getting to rub elbows with some of the movers and shakes of microbiology is always a real bonus. There are medical experts, scientists, business people and many others. It’s a lot of fun.
My family was involved in various capacities with the bacteriophage lab at Evergreen for a quarter century. My husband worked for Dr. Kutter soon after we were married while he was a student at Evergreen, and that translated into his first professional programming job for several years.
Our elder son attended his first lecture at Evergreen when only a couple months old — and both children spent their early years wandering the halls of Lab II to have lunch with their father, who was doing database work for the lab. I had the pleasure of being in one of Betty’s microbiology classes (my one and only foray into biological sciences) in 2008 when I was taking post-bac coursework before entering the Master’s in Teaching program. A decade after I worked behind the scenes on the 2009 meeting, our elder son took on the same role.
It was exciting to have a meeting that is, literally, world-renowned here in Olympia. For college and high school students who are interested in microbiology or medical applications of microbiology a conference can be a lasting connection to the wider world of the scientific community.
Although the actual lectures tend to be pretty high-end, with some advance thinking and planning, specific sessions might be useful for motivated students. For teachers who are interested in microbiology, this conference can be an excellent resource in terms of familiarizing oneself with the most current trends. At the 2009 conference, his school teacher Cory Sonneman spoke during the opening session about a study into inquiry-based scientific learning using a “Phagedigging” project in high schools. A copy of his abstract is on page 6 of the abstract book from the 2009 conference.