Call for Scientific Sessions

Call for Sessions Closes: Thursday, January 30, 2:00 PM ET

The AOAC INTERNATIONAL Technical Programming Council (TPC) invites AOAC members and other interested individuals to submit scientific session proposals to be offered at the 139th Annual Meeting & Exposition in San Diego, California, USA, August 23 – 28, 2025.

A scientific session may be in the format of a symposium, a roundtable, or a workshop. All scientific sessions at the 2025 Annual Meeting will be 90 minutes in length. All scientific sessions will be in-person.

Developing Your Scientific Session Proposal 

The TPC is seeking sessions that cover a variety of timely analytical science and food safety topics, particularly emerging issues that pose a significant challenge for our stakeholder communities. AOAC’s  Analytical Solutions Forum, New Initiatives, and Integrated Science Programs & Projects  all provide a great starting point when considering topics of interest. The TPC’s goal is to provide a meeting program that balances technical topics with broad scientific ideas and opportunities while also maintaining continuity with AOAC’s current integrated programs and projects.  

AGAIN IN 2025: AOAC is no longer requesting scientific session proposals that include a list of participants. During submission, Chairs may provide a list of desired participant names for consideration by the TPC. Participants will be assigned to accepted sessions by the TPC based on submissions to the Call for Speakers. (Call for Speakers opens Thursday, February 27, 2025.)

You will be required to submit the following information through our collection database: 

• Session Title 
• Brief Session Abstract (no more than 250 words) 
• Type of Session:  
  • A symposium will be assigned individual presentations by the TPC based on separately submitted paper abstracts 
  • A roundtable will be assigned participants by the TPC based on individuals’ areas of expertise 
  • A workshop will include only discussion chairs 
• Scientific Track(s): Submitters may indicate up to two Scientific Tracks (described below) for the proposed session 
• Chair(s) Information (no more than 2 Chairs): 
  • Chair Name(s) 
  • Chair email address(es) 
  • Chair organization name(s) 
• Desired participants, if applicable:
  • Participant Name(s) 
  • Participant organization name(s) 

The individual who submits the proposal will be notified of acceptance/rejection in late February 2025. Once a proposal is accepted, Chairs must pre-register for the Annual Meeting. Chairs and participants are responsible for their registration, travel, and lodging expenses. Registration opens in late April 2025.

After the Call for Scientific Sessions closes, the Call for Speakers will open. Individuals can submit papers for consideration to an accepted symposium or to be grouped with similar papers to form a new symposium. The TPC will review all submitted papers and assign accepted speakers to symposia. Chairs of accepted symposia can recruit speakers by encouraging development and submission of an abstract to the accepted symposium as part of the Call for Speakers.

Also, during the Call for Speakers, individuals may indicate interest in participating in a roundtable by describing their expertise to support the roundtable goals as described in the abstract. The TPC will review the expertise of interested individuals and make assignments to roundtables. 

Session Tracks

Though the TPC will consider proposals in a wide range of topic areas, the following areas are of particular interest as related to analytical science and food safety and have been identified as Session Tracks for the 2025 Annual Meeting: 

•  Agriculture, Environment, & Biostimulants – Novel and/or newly validated chemical methods related to the analysis of environmental and agriculture samples, including biostimulants 
• Bioinformatics, Chemometrics, & Data Analytics – Novel approaches for use of advanced pattern recognition and other tools for interpretation of data to ensure food and supplement quality and safety 
• Botanicals & Dietary Supplements – Novel and/or newly validated chemical methods or other developments to support potency, safety, or identity of botanicals and dietary supplements, including pre- and probiotics 
• Chemical Contaminants & Residues – Novel and/or newly validated methods to determine chemical contaminants and residues externally added, naturally present, or produced during processing of foods or supplements 
• Food Additives & Colors – Novel and/or newly validated methods to determine food additives or colors 
• Food Authenticity & Food Fraud – Novel approaches to determine truthfulness or identity of ingredients and to detect deliberate fraudulent actions on foods or supplements 
• Food Nutrition – Novel and/or newly validated methods to determine nutritional content of foods 
• Gluten & Food Allergens – Novel and/or newly validated methods to detect gluten and/or food allergens 
• Hemp & Cannabis – Novel and/or newly validated chemical methods or other developments to support potency and safety of cannabis and cannabis-containing products, including hemp 
• Laboratory Management, Compliance, & Accreditation – New approaches and developments in laboratory management, compliance, and accreditation 
• Microbiology & Molecular Biology Methods – Novel and/or newly validated microbiological methods for food and the environment, including Performance Tested Methods^SM 
• Novel Foods & Ingredients – New approaches for evaluating quality and safety of novel foods and ingredients
• Quality Assurance & Reference Materials – New approaches and developments in quality assurance, including newly released of reference materials or their use to support quality assurance 

Submission Criteria

Submissions will be judged based on the following criteria: 

• Scientific Novelty 
• Importance & Timeliness of Topics to the Field 
• Alignment with AOAC Science Programs  
• General Interest to Attendees 

AOAC INTERNATIONAL scientific sessions are designed to focus on new, updated, and emerging topics of analytical science. Session proposals should not be of a commercial nature. (Exhibitors have opportunities to present sponsored sessions that can focus on proprietary topics.) Excessive use of brand, company, product, logo, or trade names is not permitted, and occurrences of such use may affect participation in future meetings. 

No scientific sessions offered by AOAC INTERNATIONAL are to be used for commercial sales or presentations by authors or presenters without authorization from AOAC INTERNATIONAL. The TPC will give preference to submissions that provide educational benefits to a wide array of stakeholders. 

If you submitted any type of proposal (session, speaker, or poster) in Session Board in 2024 for the AOAC Annual Meeting and you plan on using the same email you used in 2024, simply login to Session Board through the above link. If you are new to Session Board, use the above link and create an account.

Call for Sessions Opens: Thursday, January 2, 2025
Call for Sessions Closes: Thursday, January 30, 2:00 PM ET