conference policies

As a regional meeting of the SMBE, TREE adheres to all of the Society's policies regarding professional conduct.

Policy on harassment, discrimination and liability

TREE organizers are dedicated to providing a safe, hospitable, and productive environment for all attendees. Accordingly, TREE prohibits all forms of discrimination and harassment. Harassment presented in a joking manner is still harassment and constitutes unacceptable behavior. Behavior that undermines the integrity of intellectual discourse and interactions will not be tolerated. This applies to all conference participants, including staff, volunteers, and attendees. If a participant engages in harassing or discriminatory behavior, the TREE organizers reserve the right to take action ranging from a simple warning to the offender to expulsion from the conference. We take such issues seriously and will do our best to maintain your confidentiality (unless legally compelled otherwise; see below). Neither SMBE nor the TREE organizers shall be responsible for any defamatory, offensive, or illegal conduct of Meeting participants, and shall not be held liable for personal injury, property damage, theft or damage of any kind suffered by the participants at or in connection with TREE.

If you have a question or concern about this policy or would like to report an incident involving yourself or another person, please contact us or find a member of the Organizing Committee. We will be wearing yellow badges at the Event.

Title IX Reporting

As a university-sponsored event being held on university property, members of the TREE Organizing Committee are required to report incidents to the University of Pittsburgh's Title IX office. While TREE will only share information within the TREE Organizing Committee and with University of Pittsburgh Title IX office, the Title IX office cannot maintain complete confidentiality.

Broadcasting policy

TREE supports the communication and discussion of science. Information presented at the meeting (in oral or poster format) may be reported and discussed by attendees and science writers via blogs, Twitter, or other formats, unless any of the authors requests otherwise. We do request that communications are respectful and do not directly reproduce visual materials (e.g., no posting of photos of slides or posters) unless permission is obtained from the presenter or if they have already made this information freely available in an open-source forum. If a presenter does not want information from his/her presentation to be photographed at all, or broadcast, they should make this clear in their talk/poster and we ask that attendees respect this. If you have questions or concerns about this policy, or would like to report an abuse of it, please contact us.