LATEST NEWS

The SSE Diversity Committee is seeking new members for 2025! The DC works to support members from all backgrounds through 1) broadening representation to the SSE Executive Council, 2) pursuing initiatives that support historically excluded groups, and 3) creating an inclusive, accessible environment at the annual Evolution meeting and in evolutionary biology in general. 

Learn more and submit your application by December 15. 

The SSE Education and Outreach Committee is pleased to announce the call for applications for the 2025 T. H. Huxley award, named in honor of Darwin's very public supporter, which recognizes and promotes the development of high-quality evolution education resources. If you have an interesting project or educational activity to share, consider applying for this award. Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows are encouraged to apply. 

This award provides funding for an SSE member to present evolution education resources at an education-focused session or conference approved by the Huxley Committee (e.g., education session at the annual Evolution meeting or the annual National Association of Biology Teachers conference).

Applications are due February 3, 2025. Learn more and apply here.

Have you had part of your dissertation published in Evolution or Evolution Letters this year? Consider submitting it for the SSE President’s Award for Outstanding Dissertation Paper. Previously only for papers in Evolution, this award now may also recognize papers published in Evolution Letters. 

Learn more and submit your nomination by January 31.

SSE is now accepting nominations for the Dobzhansky Prize to recognize the accomplishments and future promise of an outstanding early-career evolutionary biologist. 

We seek nominees working in all areas of evolutionary biology, on any taxonomic group/system, using empirical and/or theoretical approaches. We hope the pool of nominees will reflect the many axes and components of diversity in the evolutionary biology community. We are specifically looking for candidates who take creative approaches to answering pressing questions in evolutionary biology. We welcome nominations of researchers around the globe.

The Dobzhansky Prize recipient presents the Dobzhansky Prize plenary at the annual Evolution meeting. The prize is accompanied by a 5,000 USD award. 

Submit your nomination by December 1, 2024. 

The 2025 Evolution meeting, the joint meeting of the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), the American Society of Naturalists, and the Society of Systematic Biologists, will be held in two parts: a virtual portion on May 29-30, and an in-person portion on June 20-24 in Athens, GA, USA. 

SSE Council invites proposals for two sponsored symposia at the in-person meeting, and one at the virtual meeting. Symposia should highlight new topics, provide new perspectives, and/or generate new syntheses. Each in-person symposium will consist of two 75 minute sessions separated by a coffee break; the virtual symposium schedule will likely be the same or very similar. Applicants have the option to indicate whether they are willing to host their symposium in-person only, virtual only, or either.

SSE Council seriously considers the diversity of participants as a criterion for symposium funding. Symposium organizers are expected to take into account gender, seniority, nationality, and other axes of diversity traditionally underrepresented in Society symposia, and to describe their efforts to do so in the proposal. 

The Society provides travel support for organizers and participants in sponsored in-person symposia, up to $7000 USD per symposium. SSE will accept requests for additional funds for dependent care costs if this would allow a speaker to accept an invitation to speak in a sponsored symposium. For the virtual symposium, costs of speaker and organizer virtual-only registration will be covered, if necessary (those attending the in-person meeting get virtual registration included so do not need an extra virtual-only registration).

Deadline: January 6, 2025. Applicants will be notified by the end of January.

Learn more about how to submit a proposal here.

The Evolution editorial team seeks Associate Editors to serve three-year terms beginning January 2025. Associate Editors receive free membership in SSE for the duration of their term and free registration for the annual Evolution meeting.

We strongly encourage nominations and self-nominations of individuals who represent the full diversity of the evolutionary biology community, including (but not limited to) all aspects of identity and background, types of institution, geographic location, or scientific approach. 

To indicate your interest, provide your affiliation, research interests, and contact information in this short form.

Deadline: October 31

The American Society of Naturalists, the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the Society of Systematic Biologists announce the call for nominations for the ASN/SSE/SSB Inclusiveness, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Award. The IDEA Award will be given to a person at any career stage who has strengthened the ecology and evolutionary biology community by promoting inclusiveness and diversity in our fields. The award can also be presented to a group. The recipient(s) will be invited to present a plenary lecture at the annual Evolution meeting. Each recipient will also receive a plaque and a $1000 honorarium (shared among recipients if more than one). 

Learn more and submit a nomination. Deadline: October 25, 2024

Join the field gear and clothing swap at Evolution 2024!

One barrier to entry for new evolutionary biologists can be the cost of field clothing and gear. To help reduce these barriers, the society Diversity Committees are hosting a field clothing and gear swap!

If you have field gear or clothes in good condition that you no longer use, and you think someone else could make use of them, please bring them to the in-person portion of the 2024 Evolution meeting in Montreal! These items could be clothing, tents, camp stoves, headlamps, camp chairs, binoculars, compasses, shovels, butterfly nets, or anything that could help a fellow field researcher.

There will be bins set up at the Tri-Society DEI booth, and people are welcome to come by anytime to grab something that may be of interest. Used clothing and gear in decent shape will happily be accepted, but if you’re feeling extra generous, we also welcome donations of new items. Any gear that has been in contact with plants and/or soil should be fully sterilized. See you in Montreal!

2024 Recipient
Congratulations to the 2024 recipient, Dr. Samarth Mathur, for his paper, “An evolutionary perspective on genetic load in small, isolated populations as informed by whole genome resequencing and forward-time simulations.” Read more about Dr. Mathur's paper.

2024 Honorable Mention
Congratulations also to this year’s Honorable Mention, Dr. Robin Costello, for her paper, “Multilevel selection on social network traits differs between sexes in experimental populations of forked fungus beetles.” Read more about Dr. Costello's paper.

Who are your evolutionary biology heroes? Who do you know whose conceptual advances, impactful publications, outreach and education efforts, mentorship and training, service to the community, or diversity and inclusion work has contributed to the evolutionary biology field and community? Maybe it’s you! Consider nominating yourself or someone else for the SSE Lifetime Achievement Award. Nominators will be asked to complete a short form describing the nominee’s contributions to the field and community. A detailed nomination letter is not required for the initial nomination. Learn more and submit your nomination by September 30!