Division of Evolutionary Developmental Biology (DEDB): 2002 Spring Newsletter
In this newsletter:
Message
from the Chair
Günter Wagner
Ken Halanych, our
secretary, advised me to be brief. And right he is, who wants to read
more than three lines from a society officer? Here are my items:
Membership:
whatever the division can do for you scales with the size of
membership. We currently have about 215 members, which is way below
the number of DevoEvo researchers. Please encourage your friends and
colleagues who are in the field to become members of the Division
for Evolutionary Developmental Biology and of SICB, if they are not
already society members. Tell them that SICB has substantially
reduced member fees.
Student
Membership: this is a continuation of the previous point but
sufficiently important to warrant a different item. SICB offers
substantial benefits to its student members. There are amble
opportunities for graduate students to present their work in oral
presentations and to win prizes for out standing contributions. Also
the fellowships for attending the annual meetings are a
considerable. So please encourage your students, if your faculty, or
your friends, if you are a student, to join SICB and DEDB to make
this division a more exciting place.
Elections:
during this year we will elect the next chair of the Division. I am
grateful that two outstanding members of our community have agreed
to be nominated: Paula Mabee and Brian Hall. Please
look for their statements in this Spring Newsletter. I also want to
thank the members of this year's nomination committee, Mark
Martindale (chair), Patricia Hernandez and Ken Halanych for serving
on that committee. Please show your support for the division by
participating in this election.
International
Prize for Devo Evo: the Saint Petersburg Society of Naturalists
has re-activated a long dormant international prize for
Evolutionary Embryology: the Alexander Kowalevsky Medal. To
my knowledge this is currently the only international prize in our
discipline. Three of our division members are among the first set of
recipients: Gary Freeman, Brian Hall and Rudy Raff.
Please join me in congratulating them for this recognition of their
achievements.
Division
activities: this is your division, please help us serve you
better by sharing your ideas. Would you like to see us organize
discussions and workshops on topical DevoEvo issues? Please send me
your suggestions to gunter.wagner@yale.edu with the keyword
DEDB Activities. Thank you!
Molecular and
Developmental Evolution is now available to SICB members at a
discount price for personal subscription. This will make MDE the
second DevoEvo journal affiliated with SICB. You will receive a
communication with the details of this arrangement from the
publisher soon.
Last but not least I want
to thank the outgoing officers of DEDB, Rudy Raff, chair, Mark
Martindale, program officer, and Patricia Hernandez,
student representative for helping the division to a terrific start.
It is my ambition to come close to what this group did for our
division. Please join me in thanking them for their exemplary
service.
Message
from the Program Officer
Eduardo Rosa-Molinar
Saludos! The
results of the "Best Student Paper Competition" in the
Division of Evolutionary Developmental Biology (DEDB) from the recent
2002 SICB meeting in Anaheim California are in. Although there were
many excellent presentations, for the second straight year the
Program Committee found itself deadlocked on two outstanding
presentations. These were from:
Kaplan, P. from the
University of Michigan entitled:
"Ontogenetic and
evolutionary dynamics of shape disparity in the trilobite arthropod
Phacops"
Crotwell, P.L., and Mabee,
P.M. from the University of South Dakota entitled:
"Gdf5
expression in late-stage Zebrafish, Danio rerio median fins."
These two winners
demonstrate the expertise and breadth of topics that the DEDB
represents. Congratulations to these winners for their work and many
thanks to the judges for taking time to evaluate the presentations.
For the 2003 SICB meeting
in Toronto, it appears that DEDB will be co-sponsoring Francesco
Santini's symposium entitled: "Patterns and Process in the
Evolution of Fishes." Keep checking the SICB website and
DEDB newsletter for updates regarding the finalized list of symposia
that DEDB will sponsor and/or co-sponsor.
In Anaheim, the "New
perspectives on the origin of metazoan complexity" organized
by Ruth Ann Dewel, James G. Gehling, and Julian P. S. Smith III; "The
Cambrian explosion: Putting the pieces together", organized
by Graham Budd and Kevin Peterson, and the "Ecological
developmental biology" ("Eco-Devo") organized by
Scott F. Gilbert and Jessica Bolker were all well attended and
provided stimulating discussion. I congratulate the organizers and
all speakers.
It is time to begin
planning new symposia for the 2004 SICB meeting in New Orleans.
Please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss future
symposia. Encourage your graduate students and colleagues to join
SICB and the DEDB and keep sending your original research papers and
symposia to Evolution and Development (Blackwell
Science, Inc.) and The Journal of Experimental Zoology
(Molecular and Developmental Evolution) (Wiley-Liss, Inc.).
Both journals are sponsored by SICB for DEDB. I would like to thank
Mark Q. Martindale for his time and effort in his position as DEDB's
program officer. I have some big shoes to fill and I hope that all
of you will bear with me while I am learning the ropes. Saludos!
Message from the Student/Postdoc Representative
Brad Davidson
Hello everyone. Another
excellent meeting this year! As your new representative I am interested in
soliciting ideas for how to improve future meetings and in particular
the resources available for grad students and post-docs. Marcus
Davis and I met after the business meeting and came up with a few
ways to improve grad student/postdoc resources...
- Come up with an official tally of grad student/post-doc members in the division and develop ways of increasing enrollment.
- Plan for a grad student/postdoc social.
- Coordinate small informal group or one-one meetings between professors and grad students/post-docs interested in their research. These meetings would occur next year at the Toronto meeting. (Professors would reserve "office hours" during meeting, and post hours on the meeting site.)
- Publish a searchable database of evo-devo professors, students and post-docs including contact information and research interests.
I hope some of these ideas
sound useful, please send me (bjd@u.washington.edu)
your feedback and suggestions and I will try to implement those ideas
which seem to have the broadest appeal.
Message from the Secretary
Ken Halanych
Greetings all. I just have
a few topics that I want to mention. First, biographical sketches for
the two President-elect candidates (Brian Hall and Paula
Mabee) are below. Please take the time to read over these before
your vote (which will occur well be for the annual meeting this
year).
The second topic concerns
archiving divisional information. The officers are making a concerted
effort to organize meeting notes, bylaws, and division-related
information. This information will be placed on a secure page off of
the divisional webpage. These measures are being taken to provide
some "corporate memory" for the division that will make
life easier for future officers.
Last, we are still looking
to beef up the divisional webpage. If you have ideas please send them
to me (khalanych@whoi.edu).
The division also provides a valuable resource for mailing out
evo-devo information (e.g., symposia announcements, job
announcements, etc.). If you need to reach the division membership,
feel free to contact me.
Elections: Candidates for
President-Elect
Brian K. Hall
Current Position:
George S. Campbell Professor of Biology and Professor of Biology,
Dept. Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS Canada B3H 4J1
Education: University of New England, Armidale, NSW Australia, B.Sc. (1963), B. Sc. (Hons) 1965, Ph.D. 1969 (zoology), D.Sc. 1977 (Biological Sciences)
Professional Experience:
George S. Campbell Professor, Biology, Dalhousie University 2001-2007; Killam Faculty of Science Professor, ibid 1996-2001; Killam Research Professor,
ibid 1990-1995; Professor of Biology 1975-; Associate Professor of
Biology 1972-1975; Assistanht Professor of
Biology 1968-1972
SICB Activities:
Symposium co-organizer (with Lennart Olsson), "Developmental and
Evolutionary Perspectives on Major Transformations in Body
Organization" (Boston, 1998); International Guest at Centennary Meeting of SICB in Boston.
Other society activities: (selected) Member of Intern. Board of
Directors, Int. Soc. Differentiation (1998-2002), Member of
nominating committee and past member of scientific committees, Int.
Congress Vertebrate Morphology; Member Canadian National Committee of
Inter. Union of Biological Sciences; Fellow of the Royal Society of
Canada (1985), Honorary member, St. Petersburg Soc. of Naturalists
2001
Research Interests:
The development and evolution of neural crest-derived skeletal
tissues; how mechanical influences modulate differentiation of
skeletal cells; fundamental underpinnings of evo-devo - through
review synthesis; the analysis of homology; the phylogeny and
development of invertebrate cartilages; intersections between
evo-devo and palaeontology.
Goals Statement: To
consolidate the tremendous advances made in the first years of the
division by seeking further integration of evo-devo with ecological
and palaeontological approaches. To promote student membership in the
division. To work toward high-level and high-profile publication of
divisional symposia. To ensure integration of the activities of this
new division with more well established SICB divisions.
Paula Mabee
Current
Position: Professor, Department of Biology, University of South
Dakota, Vermillion, SD.
Education:
NSF Postdoctoral Fellow, 1991, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia;
Postdoctoral Fellow, 1989, Smithsonian Institution, Ichthyology;
Ph.D. 1987, Zoology, Duke University, Durham NC; B.A. 1981, Biology,
Religion, St. Olaf Collage, MN.
Professional
Experience: University of South Dakota, Professor, August 2001 -
; University of South Dakota, Associate Professor, August 1997 -
August 2001; San Diego State University, Associate Professor, August
1995 - May 1997; San Diego State University, Assistant Professor,
January 1991 - August 1995.
SICB
Activities: Past-chair, Division of Systematic Zoologists (2000 -
2001); Chair, Division of Systematic Zoologists (1998 - 2000);
Chair-elect, Division of Systematic Zoologists (1997 - 1998);
Educational workshop "Phylogenetics for Dummies" organizer
(Atlanta, 2000); Symposium co-organizer (Atlanta, 2000); Divisional
representative for Systematic Zoology for Education Committee;
Editorial Board; Nomination for Member at Large.
Other
memberships: American Association for the Advancement of Science;
American Institute of Biological Sciences; American Society of
Ichthyologists and Herpetologists; Association of Systematics
Collections; Sigma Xi; Society for Developmental Biology; Society of
Systematic Biologists.
Research
Interests: Evolution and development of the fish skeleton;
patterning of median and paired fins; phylogeny of fishes.
Goals
Statement: As Chair of DEDB, I would search for every opportunity
within SICB to advance the intellectual synthesis of evolutionary and
developmental biology. I would encourage the development of symposia
and other gatherings in which contributions are solicited from the
diverse fields pertaining to devo/evo that are already represented in
the divisions of SICB (e.g. paleontology, phylogenetics, morphology,
ecology, functional morphology, and molecular gene regulation).