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About the Blog Editor Fellowship
Public engagement and dissemination of evolutionary understanding has perhaps never been more critical, and many factors are leading evolutionary biologists to work in science communication. As such, it serves the Society’s mission to support the development of evolutionary science communicators. Additionally, communication among our membership is critical to maintaining and further nurturing the SSE community. To these ends, SSE has committed to financially supporting the creation of a professional, functional blog and to staffing this initiative with an SSE member who shows great promise in science communication. The selected individual will serve a one‐year term as editor (extending to a second year with satisfactory performance). Other applicants not selected for the editorship will have the opportunity to contribute posts in the following two years.

Responsibilities

• Initially, construct the inaugural blog site with input from SSE leadership, and indefinitely, work with web developer and the SSE website manager to implement appropriate regular changes to keep the blog fresh and pleasing to readership.


• Solicit, manage, and publish at least three articles per month from regular contributors and from special guest contributors. Articles should be released continuously (i.e., weekly or biweekly).


• Research, write, gather feedback, and edit one editorial per month on a topic of their choosing.


• Moderate comments on published articles to exclude spam or aggressive/inappropriate comments.


• Purposely and conscientiously curate blog content that is equitable, diverse, and inclusive.


• Submit blog posts for publication in a timely manner to SSE’s communications officer, Kati Moore.

Blog Content Examples
We propose the blog be a site to highlight the effective and essential work SSE members are doing to engage and educate the public and to interface with other SSE members.

Potential posts could:

• Highlight the efforts of SSE member research groups in outreach and education, helping to motivate similar efforts by other groups and provide tangible guides for implementing successful programs more widely across the SSE membership.


• Disseminate SSE announcements and, where we deem our membership would also be interested, news from our sister societies (SSB, ASN, ESEB) and other scientific societies (e.g. AAAS).


• Call attention to policy issues, actions, and legislation that are important to SSE members and facilitate meaningful action that champions evolution in the public forum, supports SSE’s mission, and coordinates with existing science policy organizations like AIBS.


• Provide written resources and links to further reading that help members navigate common academic career transitions, such as navigating graduate school, securing a postdoc/faculty position, and obtaining tenure, and also highlight diverse careers resources for those with career interests outside academia.


• Showcase contributed posts from SSE Graduate Research Excellence Grants (GREG) recipients detailing the funded research process and outcomes.


• Present how‐to guides or important information for researchers. This may take the form of a brief introduction and a link to posts on blogs such as The Molecular Ecologist. (i.e. a “link roundup”).


• Publicize reports from major meetings.


• Feature Q&A with a scientist – one scientist will be invited monthly to be the expert in residence (EiR). The EiR will be advertised on the blog and SSE social media. The EiR will select questions to answer from samples provided by the blog editor as his/her contribution to the SSE blog.

Editor Fellow Stipend
The SSE editor fellow will receive a stipend of $6000 in four disbursements (the end of March, June, September, and December). At each disbursement time, the selection committee and editor fellow will evaluate both the blog’s and the fellow’s performance and discuss the blog’s direction over the next quarter.

Please note the stipend is taxable income.

Application Instructions
SSE members interested in a career in science communication are asked to submit applications via email to gsac@evolutionsociety.org by October 1, 2018. Applications will be reviewed by a committee of three GSAC members, one Education and Outreach Committee member, and one executive Council member. The fellowship stipend will be $6,000 USD per year. The fellowship will begin January 1, 2019. Application materials will include 1) a CV, 2) a personal statement, and 3) a portfolio of science writing content. All materials must be submitted as a single PDF titled: APPLICANTS_LAST_NAME_EDITOR_FELLOW_APPLICATION_2018. The editor fellow will commit to providing structural documents and general guidance to the editor fellow who follows their term. We encourage applications from the whole community, including early-career researchers and researchers from underrepresented groups in STEM.

 

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