LATEST NEWS

Keep an eye out for the opening of registration for Evolution 2019 in Providence, RI on June 21-25. You can view registration rates on the meeting website. SSE members receive $100 off registration. A variety of travel awards are available to undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and international researchers. View the full list here. Graduate students will also have the opportunity to apply during registration to volunteer at the conference to receive a rebate equal to early student registration fees.

The GREG – R.C. Lewontin Early Awards are to assist students in the early stages of their Ph.D. programs by enabling them to collect preliminary data (to pursue additional sources of support) or to enhance the scope of their research beyond current funding limits (e.g. by visiting additional field sites, or working at other labs). Awards will be made up to $2500. Proposals are due February 15. Learn more and apply here.

The SSE Education and Outreach Committee is pleased to announce the T. H. Huxley award, which recognizes and promotes the development of high quality evolution education resources. This award provides funding for an SSE member to present evolution education resources at the National Association of Biology Teachers annual conference. If you have an interesting project or educational activity to share, consider applying for this award. Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows are especially encouraged to apply. Learn more here and apply by March 24.

Applications for international travel stipends are now open. These stipends are for students and young scientists to attend the Evolution meeting in Providence, Rhode Island on June 21-25, 2019. Awards may alternatively be used to attend the ESEB meeting in Turku, Finland from August 19-24, 2019. Learn more and apply here by March 31.

Applications for the SSE International Committee grants for the co-sponsorship of symposia organized by non-US based evolution societies are due March 31. The goal of these awards is to foster communication between scientists from different countries by stimulating scientific dialogue through co-sponsored symposia. Evolution societies with limited financial resources will have the opportunity to invite speakers (SSE members) to their meeting. This will provide growth opportunities for both societies, since it will not only benefit the hosting society but also create the opportunities for new collaborations for the invited speakers. Learn more here.

Applications for the SSE International Committee grants for international events are due March 31. These events are aimed at furthering the purpose of the Evolution Society by fostering international collaborations amongst evolution-oriented societies and scientists. Eligible events would include specialized symposia, workshops, and short courses in any aspect of evolutionary biology. The events could be hosted either in the US or abroad, and preference should be given to events that specifically include participants from countries other than the USA. Learn more here.

After a one-year hiatus, the Evolution Video Contest/Film Festival is back! The organizers took a year off last year for the Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology, but are excited to bring the 8th Annual Evolution Video Contest/Film Festival to this year’s Evolution Conference in Providence, RI on June 21-25.  Start working on your video now, because the deadline to submit is May 31st, 2019 (11:59 PM, EST). Continue reading to learn more.

As part of our ongoing efforts to grow and reflect our nature as an international society, SSE now offers free or 50% reduced SSE membership fees to researchers from lower-income countries through the Global Membership Assistance (GMA) scheme. This replaces the previous “Developing Nation” discounted membership. Please help spread the word and invite your non-member colleagues in these lower-income countries to consider taking advantage of this new program! Learn more here.

The SSE New Faculty Profile series highlights and introduces up-and-coming PIs in SSE. This month we highlight Dr. Scott Taylor. Dr. Taylor is an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder studying the genetic architecture of reproductive isolation and the genetic bases of traits relevant to speciation. Read his full profile here.

The SSE New Faculty Profile series highlights and introduces up-and-coming PIs in SSE. This month we highlight Dr. Katie McGhee. Dr. McGhee is an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at Sewanee: The University of the South studying the role parental effects have in shaping offspring behavior in a variety of fish species. Read her full profile here.

On December 5-6, 2018, the American Institute of Biological Science (AIBS) held discussions on the challenges facing scientists who work within an international platform. The conference, titled "Next Gen International Biology," had participants from multiple countries, and included people involved in various branches of science, publishing, museums, and political representatives. SSE funded a representative from our Public Policy Committee, Amanda Moehring, to attend. Continue reading to hear more about her experience.

After a one-year hiatus, the Evolution Video Contest/Film Festival is BACK!  We took a year off last year, but are excited to bring the 8th Annual Evolution Video Contest/Film Festival to this year’s Evolution Conference in Providence, RI.  So start working on your video now because the deadline to submit is May 31st, 2019 (11:59 PM, EST). Continue reading to learn more.

Mark your calendars for Evolution 2019 in Providence, RI on June 21-25. Meeting registration and talk/poster submissions will open in February. (Please note: this year we return to the model in which abstracts are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis). You can view hotel information here. Dorm information will be posted in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for more updates!

The SSE Public Policy Committee is pleased to offer grants to SSE members to attend science communication and advocacy training held by the American Institute for Biological Sciences (AIBS) on March 25-27 in Washington, DC. In addition to the training, participants will speak with their elected congressional representatives during meetings organized by AIBS. Scientists and graduate students who are interested in communicating the importance of federal investments in scientific research and education to lawmakers are encouraged to participate in this valuable workshop. Funding will cover economy travel and reasonable lodging. To apply, please complete this application before January 28, 2019. Read statements from last year’s funded participants here.

The GREG – R.C. Lewontin Early Awards are to assist students in the early stages of their Ph.D. programs by enabling them to collect preliminary data (to pursue additional sources of support) or to enhance the scope of their research beyond current funding limits (e.g. by visiting additional field sites, or working at other labs). Awards will be made up to $2500. Proposals will be due February 15. Learn more and apply here.

We’re excited to announce plans for a new SSE blog to begin in February. This blog is intended to serve as both a resource and a platform for our diverse community of evolutionary biologists. Captaining this endeavor is our new Blog Editor Fellow, Dr. Sasha Mushegian. Sasha is a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, where she’s working on a project on population genomics of invasive mosquitoes. She has previous experience doing editorial and communications work for nonprofit scientific societies in the Washington, DC area. She says: “I was drawn to the ecology and evolution field in part because it has a long tradition of great writing; my formative years reading Rachel Carson and Stephen Jay Gould started a lifelong interest in hearing what scientists had to say. I’m looking forward to hearing from all of you!” Welcome to the team, Sasha!

The SSE New Faculty Profile series highlights and introduces up-and-coming PIs in SSE. This month we highlight Dr. Ricardo Mallarino. Dr. Mallarino is an assistant professor at Princeton University studying the genetic and developmental mechanisms driving the evolution of  body form and structure in vertebrates. Read his full profile here.

The SSE New Faculty Profile series highlights and introduces up-and-coming PIs in SSE. This month we highlight Dr. Emily Sessa. Dr. Sessa is an assistant professor at the University of Florida studying the evolutionary and ecological processes that shape plant diversity. Read her full profile here.

Last year, the SSE Education and Outreach Committee awarded the T.H. Huxley Award to Dr. Katie Grogan and colleagues Dr. Teresa W. Lee and Dr. Justine Liepkalns, who developed an educational activity for teaching evolutionary mechanisms. Winners of this award are provided with support to present on behalf of the Society for the Study of Evolution at the annual meeting of the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT). Continue reading to hear more from Dr. Grogan.

The SSE Public Policy Committee is pleased to offer grants to SSE members to attend science communication and advocacy training held by the American Institute for Biological Sciences (AIBS) on March 25-27 in Washington, DC. In addition to the training, participants will speak with their elected congressional representatives during meetings organized by AIBS. Scientists and graduate students who are interested in communicating the importance of federal investments in scientific research and education to lawmakers are encouraged to participate in this valuable workshop. Funding will cover economy travel and reasonable lodging. To apply, please complete this application before January 28, 2019. Read statements from last year’s funded participants here.

As 2018 draws to a close, we can reflect on all that SSE has accomplished this year. Here are a few highlights. Most notably, we co-sponsored the largest Evolution meeting on record—the Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology in August in the beautiful city of Montpellier, France. With ASN and SSB, we continued to improve our support for parents attending our annual meetings, offering free childcare at Evolution 2019 and additional dependent-care funding for invited SSE symposium speakers. We introduced a new tier of Graduate Research Excellence Grants and contributed well over $100K to student research and travel support. We also launched a monthly series of New Faculty Profiles and grew our SSE twitter account (;@sse_evolution) to nearly 5000 followers. We continued to have a voice in public policy and to strive to make our community more international, diverse, and inclusive, including establishing the tri-society Safe Evolution program and a Code of Conduct for our meetings. Finally, we started new initiatives that are just underway, such as hiring an SSE Blog Editor Fellow and forming a new Code of Ethics committee (see below).

It has been an immense pleasure to serve alongside an incredibly engaged and hardworking SSE Council as well as our partner societies, ASN, SSB, and ESEB, to continue to build a strong, diverse, and active evolutionary biology community. I would like to thank those who have served, welcome our newly elected Council members, and hand the reins to Mark Rausher, our incoming President. Here’s to continued success in 2019!

Congratulations to our newly elected members of the SSE Council: Ruth Shaw (President-elect), Aneil Agrawal (North American Vice President), Suzanne Edmands (Councilor), and Stacey Smith (Councilor). These positions will officially start January 1, with these new leaders joining Council at our mid-year Council meeting in February.

We’d like to thank our outgoing leadership for their outstanding service to SSE: Sally Otto (Past President), Jenny Boughman (North American Vice President), Susan Alberts (Councilor), and Becky Fuller (Councilor). Thank you for all of your time, effort, and dedication to the Society!

Many award deadlines are quickly approaching. Mark your calendars!

Stephen Jay Gould Prize: January 15

Evolution 2019 Travel Awards for Brazilian Researchers: January 15

Small Grants Program for Local and Regional Outreach: January 18

Theodosius Dobzhansky Prize: January 31

R. A. Fisher Prize: January 31

Graduate Research Excellence Grant - R.C. Lewontin Early Award: February 15

SSE Council is pleased to announce the launch of a tri-society initiative between SSE, ASN, and SSB to draft a Code of Ethics. While behavior at the annual meeting falls under our Code of Conduct, the societies currently have no policy regarding conduct outside of our meetings. Establishing a Code of Ethics will allow the societies to set criteria for membership, leadership, and meeting attendance that are fair to all involved. Currently, committee members representing SSE (Amy Angert), SSB (Rayna Bell), ASN (Emilio Bruna), and grads/postdocs (Emlyn Resetariats) are tasked with researching existing societal Codes and producing a framework for ours. After this initial phase, each society will form its own internal committee to draft its Code of Ethics. Finally, the tri-society committee will reconvene to ensure compatibility of the individual Codes as they pertain to joint meetings. We welcome input from the community. Feedback and ideas can be sent to SSE Councilor Amy Angert at angert@mail.ubc.ca.