Hi Phage Fam,

It’s finally time to register for the 25th Evergreen Phage Meeting!

For Evergreen’s 50th birthday, we wanted to celebrate Betty’s legacy, her lifetime of achievements, and the phage community she’s helped shape.

We’d love to see every person that Betty’s mentorship and generosity has touched come back home to Evergreen to celebrate her legacy and share some stories (and science!).

Evergreen is a feeling

I vividly remember my first Evergreen, just a few years back. Even as a newcomer to the phage field (and not even a biologist!), Betty invited me, Jessica, Fran and Charlie to stay at her house for a week before the Meeting to hike the woods, talk science, and share some great meals.

Right from the start, I knew that Evergreen was different — Evergreen felt like a community — like a family — of phage fanatics. Though many phage conversations went way over my head, how amazing is it that you can talk science with some of the best researchers in the world, while surrounded by nature, hiking a mountain, or wading across a beach?

(And isn’t it funny that Betty then asked us to help her prep a meal for hundreds of attendees at her house, for the first day of the conference? And I coincidentally just had to do the bioinformatics workshops… so sorry for dipping out to go to the Workshops instead of helping out, Fran and Charlie… but your deviled eggs were amazing! 😅 )

Evergreen is the friends we’ve made along the way

Many of us are in the phage field (including me and Jessica!) because of Evergreen Phage Meeting, and from Betty’s decades of generous and tireless efforts to help early career researchers get into the field.

I’ve met so many awesome phage folks — like Shawna and Bob — who were taught or mentored by Betty, and who are now the next generation of phage researchers pushing the boundaries and advancing phage research. I also met so many other great phage folks at the previous Evergreen (before the pandemic years) that I still keep in touch with today (and regularly hit up whenever I’m lost or confused).

As a complete newbie to phages, every single person I’ve met along the way has been kind and generous with their time, knowledge, and patience, to help me get to where I am now. This year, I can’t wait to nerd out about phages this year, now that I’ve spent some time working with phage data, in a real phage lab!

Evergreen is science camp

Evergreen will definitely feature world-class research and amazing workshops — but that’s not what makes Evergreen special.

Evergreen is the moments between the moments. Like skipping school to drink beers and talk phages with important government regulators. Or going on long phage walks on the beach. Or dance night. Or salmon bake. Or Jake’s. Or… getting lost in the woods…

Me and Jan were at Evergreen 2019 and trying to get to the beach where the group had headed after the talks, as per Evergreen tradition. We got lost in the dark and both our phones were either dead or at ~1%. I seriously thought we’d have to sleep in the woods unless we turned back and used our remaining light to get home. It was INSANELY dark, and we were not on a road — we were in a literal forest. After much disagreement we turned back and found our way back somehow… just in time to catch the group returning from the bioluminescent beach walk. Jan was sad to miss it… I was glad to be alive. 😱
— Jessica

Also did you know Evergreen is the reason behind how Jessica and I met in the first place?

We all have these stories, and we’d love to share them and read them. Share your own Evergreen story below (anonymously, if you’d like!). We’ll show these on the Evergreen website, and maybe at Evergreen itself!

Evergreen is more than science

We really mean it when we say science camp.

Of course, we’ll have many full days of rigorous science talks, poster sessions, and bioinformatics workshops. If you want to run a workshop, let us know!

By the way: Abstract submission is now open! We’re on a really tight deadline this year: All Abstracts due June 16. Oral abstracts due June 9. https://evergreen.phage.directory/abstract

This year we’ll be featuring:

• Movie Night featuring Salt in My Soul with a Q&A with Mallory’s parents
• Game Night featuring a special phage-themed card game designed by the Nobrega Lab
• Scavenger Hunt organized TAILOR Labs…
• The regular events like Bioluminescent Beach Night, Dance Night, Traditional Salmon Bake Dinner, and Mt. Rainier hiking day
• Unfortunately, Jake’s doors have closed forever…

Early-bird ends May 21: “Spots are limited, so hurry!”

As you’ve probably noticed, Evergreen is quite a bit more expensive this year. This is because this is the first year we’re 100% independent of the Evergreen State College. This means that we don’t receive any support from the College anymore, and are now completely self-funded and self-supported, by sponsors and by the Phagebiotics Foundation.

As such, things cost a bit more for us to run, and unfortunately we’ll need to raise prices to cover the costs. 100% of proceeds go to running the program, paying for venues, hiring buses, and running the show.

Also, “Limited spots” is unfortunately not a joke — we have an allotted 250 on-campus tickets, and we have a max capacity of 500 attendees.

For group registration discounts, scholarships and sponsorships, and invoices, please email Ria: at [email protected]. If you encounter any weird technical problems, you can blame me (but also email me) at [email protected]

Also for those of you wondering — we didn’t want to be alarmist, but this is very likely the last “real” Evergreen. Some of the reasons for the launch delays this year were because of Betty’s health, and frankly the only reason we’re doing Evergreen is because we’re betting on Betty being in good health in August. We were very close to calling it quits this year, so we think it’s really important that all her favorite people come out this year.

I can’t tell you how excited I am for this Evergreen! Jessica and I are flying from Sydney to Seattle just to partake in this year’s Evergreen (it’s a 21 hour trip!).

Hope to see you all there, phage phriends!!

— Jan, Jessica, Ria, and the rest of the Evergreen Team

P.s. Please help us spread the word by setting your Twitter / Facebook / Linkedin cover photo to our Evergreen banners! You can find more images on our Media page.