Submission Deadline: 31 January 2025, at 11:59 p.m. ET
We seek a varied suite of thematic symposia at the 2025 meeting of the American Ornithological Society (AOS) to be held in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, 11–15 August 2025. We invite proposals for symposia that will cover a wide range of timely topics highlighting exciting advances in ornithological research, and how that research is translated into management, education, and conservation. Symposia are an opportunity for an integrated synthesis of a new or timely topic that will have broad appeal at the conference and include diverse perspectives and voices. The invited talks within a symposium should be focused around a central theme or question and allow for thorough coverage of that topic.
Symposia organizers may request one, two, or three 90-minute sessions. Talks should be multiples of 15 minutes and the final one or two time slots, totalling 15 to 30 minutes, can be reserved for a summary or panel discussion. Organizers may alternatively request a lightning symposia format. Lightening symposia are 90 minutes long with 16 invited 5-minute talks. The final two time slots, totaling 10 minutes, can be reserved for a synthesis of the symposium.
Organizers and invited speakers for all symposia are expected to make their own travel arrangements and pay full conference registration. Organizers of accepted symposia are responsible for ensuring that the presenters in their symposium submit their final individual abstracts through the online abstract submission portal for general sessions in a timely manner. Organizers or their designee are expected to serve as session moderators. Instructions and deadlines will be provided to the organizers when they are notified of acceptance of the symposium. Organizer(s) are responsible for inviting and confirming participation by prospective speakers at their symposium. Please note, only 15-minute oral presentations will be eligible for the student presentation award competition: neither lightning talks nor talks >15 minutes will be eligible. We ask that you share this information with prospective student participants. Once accepted, organizers of symposia are expected to communicate with their speakers and coordinate their session.
Speakers who have been invited to present in an accepted symposium have the option to additionally submit an abstract for a contributed oral presentation. However, if we have more oral presentation submissions than we can support, those who are already presenting in a symposium will be asked to give a poster.
Note that translation services will not be available at the meeting but the program and meeting information will be available in Spanish as well as English. This will be an exclusively in-person meeting and we will not have the capacity to support pre-recorded or virtual presentations.
Symposia submissions are evaluated based on the following criteria:
- Appeal to a broad audience
- Scientific strength, structure, and organization
- Proportion of proposed speakers that are confirmed
- Geographic and topical diversity
- The inclusion of diverse perspectives and voices
INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMITTING PROPOSALS
Proposals will include:
- Title
- Organizer(s) who will be the point of contact and responsible for communicating with speakers (name, institution, email, and title)
- Session description and justification (< 1,500 characters), addressing the appeal to a broad audience and the inclusion of diverse perspectives and voices
- A one-sentence session summary (< 300 characters)
- Format (one 90-minute session, two 90-minute sessions, three 90-minute sessions, or one 90-minute lightning session)
- Presenter information: name, affiliation, email, tentative presentation title
- Range of desired dates (12–15 August)
Only invited speakers who have committed to the session should be listed.
All proposals for symposia must be received by 31 January 2025.
Proposals for symposia must be submitted through the online AOS Member Portal. You will need to create a free account on the Member Portal if you do not already have one.
Translation Resources
Please note that the symposia submission portal is in English. If English is not your primary language, the following online language translation tools may be helpful:
Questions?
Send questions to Jen Walsh, chair of the Scientific Program Committee (via email to spc@americanornithology.org), with the subject AOS 2025 Symposium.
English 
Spanish 
French