BBM was founded in 1995 by two postdocs from Richard Losick’s lab at Harvard, Kit Pogliano and Karen McGovern, with the goal of bringing bacteriologists from the greater Boston area together to present their work and share ideas. BBM, now in its 30th year, has proven to be a vibrant meeting, attended not only by bacteriologists from the Boston area but from all over the country. Keeping with its roots, the conference is being planned and organized by a committee of students, postdocs, and other early career researchers. This year, the organizational committee is co-chaired by Molly Sargen, a graduate student in Sophie Helaine’s lab at Harvard Medical School, and Laurent Dubois, a graduate student in Tom Bernhardt’s lab at Harvard Medical School.