Joan founded her association management company in San Francisco in 1993 to support international scientific and medical societies, expanding to three full-service association management contracts and several symposia management contracts, working with a team of three highly motivated full time staff within five years of establishment. Moved company to Germany in 2005 becoming fully virtual and specializing in management of International Workshops & Symposia. Became the Managing Director of the International Cytokine & Interferon Society (ICIS) in 2017 and the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology (ISDP) in 2018, as well as managing a few related scientific meetings (Tularemia International Society, EBV Association and KSHV Workshop), with meetings planned in Boston, San Francisco, New York City, San Diego, Hawaii, Chicago, Vienna, Athens, Paris, Dublin, Grenoble and Montreal, as well as Virtual & Hybrid Meetings.
Joan Oefner was honored with the 2020 ICIS Distinguished Service Award in recognition for her extraordinary contributions and service to the ICIS and to the cytokine research community at large. Now after eight years managing the International Cytokine & Interferon Society, it is time to pass the torch to Stephanie Flores, CAE, who also took over another former client (casss.org) as we focus on scientific associations and meetings with under 500 participants. At Cytokines 2024 in Seoul, Joan was honored with a named ICIS Student/Postdoc Member Travel Award.
Hannah Oefner, Masters Student at Pepperdine Graziadio & MCI, Innsbruck
Internship
I nnsbruck, Tyrol, Austria
Education
CURRENT Managing Director clients:
Since December 2017 – International Society for Developmental Psychobiology (ISDP), Joan’ Virtual Office took over the management and Annual Meeting organization. Please visit the website we designed for more information: www.isdp.org. The first order of business was to set up a fully integrated, responsive online association management system using www.i4a.com for membership, meeting registration, abstract submission, and awards applications. We are using OxfordAbstracts for the online abstracts, program, ePosters. The International Society for Developmental Psychobiology (ISDP) is an international non-profit organization which encourages research on the development of behavior in all organisms including man, with special attention to the effects of biological factors operating at any level of organization. The society holds annual meetings to facilitate communication of research results and theory in the area of Developmental Psychobiology. The ISDP strongly supports and encourages young scientists with travel awards, networking and meeting events designed specifically for the students.
2025 CONFERENCES:
PAST CLIENTS:
December 2016 – December 2024 International Cytokine & Interferon Society (formerly ISICR and ICS), Joan, and her Virtual Office, replaced the staff at the FASEB campus in Bethesda, MD which had managed the ISICR and then the merged society since 1996. With 1,120 international members across different research disciplines, ICIS is the premier organization promoting the field of cytokine biology, impacting all aspects of medicine and leading to new treatments in autoimmune diseases, cancer, infectious diseases and inflammation. Please visit the society’s websites designed and managed by Rhema Association Management:
www.signals.cytokinesociety.org
www.athens.cytokinesociety.org
www.hawaii.cytokinesociety.org
www.interferonlambda.cytokinesociety.org
www.cardiff.cytokinesociety.org
www.seattle.cytokinesociety.org
www.boston.cytokinesociety.org
PAST CONFERENCES:
MORE PAST CONFERENCES PRE-COVID-19:
