Note:
***This award is being moved to once every three years. The next competition will be announced in 2026.***
The SSE Gould Prize Committee is pleased to announce Dr. James T. Costa as the 2023 recipient of the Stephen Jay Gould Prize. Dr. Costa was selected for his work to advance the public understanding of evolution and the history of evolutionary thinking, and for his work to promote biodiversity education and conservation through outreach and community engagement.
Dr. Costa is the author of several books and other publications on the history of evolutionary biology focusing on the contributions of Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin, including "The Annotated Origin," the popular science book "Darwin's Backyard: How Small Experiments Led to a Big Theory," and his most recent book "Radical by Nature: The Revolutionary Life of Alfred Russel Wallace."
For more than 17 years, Dr. Costa has served as the executive director of Western Carolina University's Highlands Biological Station, which is located in a southern Appalachian biodiversity hotspot and has provided experiential learning opportunities, research support, and outreach programming for students and professionals at all levels since 1927.
Dr. Costa is professor of biology at Western Carolina University, where he teaches courses on biogeography, Darwin’s Origin of Species, and a comparative temperate-tropical ecology field course taught at Highlands Biological Station and Wildsumaco Biological Station in Ecuador. He is also adjunct professor in the Department of Biology and Institute for the Environment at UNC-Chapel Hill, and research associate in entomology at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology.
He is a recipient of the Alfred Russel Wallace medal, serves as a Trustee of the Charles Darwin Trust, and has held research fellowships at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study of Harvard University, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, LuEsther T. Mertz Library of the New York Botanical Garden, and the DFG-Centre for Advanced Study at the University of Hamburg.
Dr. Costa will present the Gould Prize plenary at the Evolution 2023 meeting on June 21 in Albuquerque, NM.
The Stephen Jay Gould Prize is awarded annually to recognize individuals whose sustained and exemplary efforts have advanced public understanding of evolutionary science and its importance in biology, education, and everyday life in the spirit of Stephen Jay Gould.
The award will include a cash prize of $5,000 and the expectation that the recipient will present the Public Outreach Seminar at the Evolution Meeting (expenses for travel/lodging and registration are covered by SSE). Awardees will be encouraged to submit an accompanying article to Evolution (primary research, review, insight or commentary, fast-tracked through review and made freely available) within 2 months of the conference. Published articles would highlight the prize obtained. The awardee should be a leader in evolutionary thought and in public outreach who can deliver an inspiring lecture for both professionals and the broader public at the annual Evolution meeting.
Nominations should include the CV of the nominee along with a 1-2 page letter describing why this individual is worthy of the award. Nominations will be accepted via our online awards platform. All nominations will be treated confidentially and will be evaluated by members of the Committee and the Council for the Society. An awardee will be announced in early February. Please contact communications [at] evolutionsociety.org with any questions.
Or click here to access the application.
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DEADLINE: January 15, 2023
2011, Dr. Kenneth R. Miller
2017, Timothy R. Birkhead
