Division of Comparative Endocrinology (DCE): 2005 Spring Newsletter

In this newsletter:

• Message from the Chair
• Message from the Program Officer
• Message from the Secretary
• Message from the DCE Representative to the Student/Postdoctoral Affairs Committee
• Candidates for Elections

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Message from the Chair

David Borst (dwborst@mail.bio.ilstu.edu)

The SICB Annual Meeting in San Diego was an exciting start for the New Year - there were lots of good presentations, keeping spirits high in spite of the wet weather. One particularly high point at the meeting for DCE members was the fourth annual Howard Bern Lecturer presented by Jim Truman. Jim's talk was entitled "Insect ecdysis: dissection of an endocrine cascade that underlies a complex program of behavior". The Bern Lecture series is supported by Elsevier and the SICB and it is an important addition to the SICB Annual Meeting.

Once again, our oral and poster presentations covered the full range of comparative endocrinology and represented some of the best work in our field. I want to thank our Program Officer, Kyle Selcer, for the fine job he did in organizing the program. Of some concern is the decrease in the number of presentations compared to previous meetings. Even more worrisome is the lack of DCE symposia this year and next. (We did co-sponsor the mini-symposium "Zoo-based Research and Conservation" this year, and will co-sponsor two symposia next year). I strongly encourage DCE members to propose symposia for our future meetings, since these presentations represent one of the most important activities of our Division. The lead-time for symposia is lengthy (about 18 months), so start planning now if you want to organize a symposium for the meeting in Phoenix (2007). If any of you have questions about organizing a symposium, please contact me or Kyle Selcer.

Pamela Elf chaired the student awards committee this year. Thanks to Pamela and the many judges for their help. There were 32 students competing for DCE awards this year and the competition was keen, making the final selections difficult. Our congratulations to all of the winners!

The Aubrey Gorbman Award for Best Student Oral Presentation was shared by Asaf Shechter (Ben-Gurion Univ.; The expression and regulation of the vitellogenin gene in male Cherax quadricarinatus) and Morgan Benowitz-Fredericks (Univ. Washington and the Univ. Alaska: Yolk androgens in Black-legged kittiwakes: Consequences of food supplementation). Honorable mention in this category went to Alan Vajda (Univ. of Colorado; Reproductive disruption and intersex in white suckers (Catostomus commersoni) downstream of a Colorado wastewater treatment plant).

The Aubrey Gorbman Award for Best Student Poster Presentation was shared by Jamie Cornelius (Univ. of California, Davis; Effects of food reduction on stress reactivity in an irruptive nomad, the red crossbill) and Tom Small (Arizona State Univ; Supplementary information, not photoperiod, regulates plasma luteinizing hormone in male Rufous-winged Sparrows, Aimophila carpalis). Honorable mention in this category went to Christine Strand (Arizona State Univ; Singing in the rain: Growth of the song control system in free-ranging adult male Rufous-winged Sparrows, Aimophila carpalis)

As you are probably aware, a major problem facing the Society is the continuing erosion of institutional subscribers for our journal, Integrative and Comparative Biology. This drop has major consequences for the Society: not only is income from the journal important for the financial health of the Society, but reduced circulation will tend to marginalize the importance of papers printed in the journal. This could lead to a decrease in symposia quality. The Society is investigating ways to reverse the loss in subscriptions, including working with a publisher to help promote the journal. You will hear more about this directly from the Society in the next few months. I encourage you to read these messages closely and contact me if you have questions and/or concerns.

The DCE will be reviewing its By-Laws this year, in part to make the practices of our division conform more closely to those of the Society. I want to extend my appreciation to Sunny Boyd and Kevin Kelley for shouldering this task. Their proposed draft for changes to the By-Laws will be posted on the DCE electronic bulletin board. Please see Kevin Kelley's comments below.

This year, the Division will be select a Chair-elect and a Secretary-elect. We have two excellent candidates for each of these positions. Henry John-Alder and Stacia Sower have agreed to run for the Chair-elect position. Steve McCormick and Catherine Propper have agreed to run for the Secretary-elect position. Their biographic sketches are at the end of this Newsletter. I want to thank Mike Moore for chairing the Nomination Committee and Brian Tsukimura and Mary Mendonca for serving on it.

Finally, I want to express my appreciation to Jim Carr for his fine service as Secretary during the last two years. Jim was replaced by Kevin Kelley, who started his term at the San Diego meeting in January; you can see the enthusiasm he is bringing to this job by reading his report. Kyle Selcer will continue as Program Officer this year, and will be helped in this task by Mike Romero, our Program Officer-elect. His report explains what is being planned for next year. I appointed Darren Lerner as our Divisional Representative on the Student-Postdoctoral Affairs Committee (SPDAC). His message below describes the plans of this committee for the next meeting. Robert Denver, Chair-elect, will take over the DCE Chair position at the Orlando meeting. I look forward to seeing all of you there in January, 2006.

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Message from the Program Officer

Kyle W. Selcer (selcer@duq.edu)

Symposia for the 2006 Meeting in Orlando, Florida

Symposia have been selected for the 2006 meeting in Orlando, Florida. Two symposia have been given the designation "society-wide" and should be of interest to DCE members. These are: 1) "Metamorphosis: A Multi-Kingdom Approach" organized by Andreas Heyland, Jason Hodin, Cory Bishop, and Leonid Moroz, and 2) "Ecological Immunology" organized by Kelly Lee and Bram Lutton. In addition, DCE will help sponsor the symposium entitled "Ecophysiology and Conservation: The Contributions of Energetics and Sensory Biology" organized by R. D. Stevenson and C. R. Tracy.

!!Call for Symposia, 2007 meeting in Phoenix, Arizona!!

Information on submitting symposia for the 2007 meeting in Phoenix is now a link on the home page of the SICB web site. Please think about developing exciting and engaging symposia in your field. DCE-organized symposia have been few and far between lately. Symposia are a major draw for our annual meeting and can be extremely rewarding for the organizers as well. Symposium papers are often published together in an issue of Integrative and Comparative Biology. Deadline for submissions is August 19, 2005. If you have an idea for a symposium, please do not hesitate to contact me (selcer@duq.edu).

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Message from the Secretary

Kevin M. Kelley (kmkelley@csulb.edu)

Minutes of the DCE Business Meeting, San Diego, CA January 6, 2005

The meeting was called to order by DCE Chair David Borst at 5:15 pm. The minutes from the 2004 DCE Business Meeting were approved, and then David introduced the other DCE officers, Kyle Selcer (Program Officer) and Kevin Kelley (Secretary). He then proceeded to share information on the upcoming SICB meetings and other business. The next Annual Meetings will be held in Orlando, FL (2006), Phoenix, AZ (2007), and San Antonio, TX (2008).

David also discussed the Society journal, Integrative and Comparative Biology. Presently, there is a limited backlog of papers, and the previous "turn-around" issues have improved. John Edwards is happy to continue in position as Editor, but has also stated his willingness to pass the baton to someone else. The institutional subscription rate for ICB has decreased significantly. In addition, its abstracting by MedLine ceased when the journal changed name, and there has been difficultly getting it reinstated. There is now interest in moving management of ICB to a larger publisher (presently the journal is self-published by the Society, and printed by Allen Press). It is believed that a professional publisher can better market the journal and stabilize its finances. David ended by encouraging us to encourage our respective institutions to subscribe to ICB.

David then introduced Kyle Selcer, Program Officer for DCE, who provided some details on the 2005 meeting. There were between 1360-1400 attendees this year, and DCE had 85 submitted abstracts. Last year DCE had 125 DCE abstracts, yet with the same overall number of attendees at the meeting. He suggested that we all be sure to mark "Regulatory Biology" when submitting abstracts in the future, as this may be one reason the numbers appeared reduced this year. Kyle then announced that the DCE is sponsoring 2 symposia for next year, yet these symposia were not submitted by DCE members, nor do they have much direct endocrine interests. DCE members are strongly encouraged to submit proposals for symposia for the 2007 meetings (its too late for next year's meeting)! Symposia from DCE bring valuable exposure to our field and serve to enhance attendance and interest at the meetings. For the 2007 meeting, to be held in Arizona, the deadline for symposia proposals will be August 19, 2005 (any desert themes?!)

See the following page, "Call for Symposia for the 2007 Meeting in Phoenix", http://www.sicb.org/meetings/2007/index.php3, if you are interested.

David then introduced Kevin Kelley, the new DCE Secretary (and writer of this report). I brought forth 3 goals for the next two years as Secretary: 1) To work toward increasing the profile of DCE science and scientists, 2) To build a stronger link between DCE members and officers, and 3) To increase the involvement of our student/postdoc members in what we do.

With respect to the 1^st goal, I would like to begin by encouraging any DCE member to send a jpegs of you and/or your group "in action" - in the lab, field, or other; it can also be a collage of several shots. Accompany with a one-paragraph profile of what you do, who you are, and don't forget to provide your contact information, personal website, etc. Send them to the DCE secretary. Furthermore, you may send mp3 or video (qt, mpg, wmv) files. Please do this! It's good for the Society, for the field of comparative endocrinology, and it may even help you to recruit students, among other personal benefits. You can find one already building for the DEE (see http://sicb.org/divisions/dee.php3, click on "Researchers Database").

With respect to the 2^nd goal, expect to hear from me soon regarding DCE By-law changes. The SICB Executive Committee has asked all divisions to re-write their divisional by-laws, in part for better conforming to the new Society By-Laws. I asked Sunny Boyd to speak to this at the business meeting, and she pointed out that the existing DCE By-laws are only 1.5 pages in length and aren't very informative (e.g., with respect to time-line of officer turn-over, rules for best student paper competition, etc.). We need to make them more useful and applicable for us. ***Please see NewsFlash below!***

With respect to the 3^rd goal, I began by encouraging our DCE Representative to the Student/Postdoctoral Affairs Committee (SPDAC) to submit a report of this committee's activities and future plans. Students and postdocs represent >25% of the SICB membership, so we should have better communication! Our new DCE Rep to the SPDAC is Darren Lerner (U Mass Amherst; dlerner@forwild.umass.edu). Please read over his comments below.

SICB President, John Wingfield, briefly addressed the DCE Business Meeting. He introduced Sally Woodin, the next SICB President, and Ron Dimock, SICB Treasurer. John then raised issues discussed at the General Business Meeting, which included the concern that NSF funding for SICB symposia will be reducing, and he expressed his support for moving ICB to a professional publisher, for the reasons David described earlier. If you are interested in the SICB financial situation, check out Ron Dimock's Treasurer's Report of this Newsletter. He highlighted the effect that reduced institutional ICB subscriptions is having on the operating budget (50% of the SICB budget derives from journal fees).

Tom Vandergon, NSF Program Director for the Functional and Regulatory Systems Cluster of the Division of Integrative Organismal Biology (IOB), also made a brief presentation to explain changes at NSF. IOB replaced Integrative Biology and Neuroscience (IBN), and it contains 4 new funding clusters. See http://www.nsf.gov/div/index.jsp?div=IOB for more details. He encouraged PIs to call him or other program directors if they have any questions, as to where to submit proposals, etc. Funding rate in IOB this year was 15%.

Bob Dores, Editor-in-Chief of General and Comparative Endocrinology, reported that the GCE is in good shape, and handled 272 manuscripts in the past year. The rejection rate was 24%, with 69% of the accepted manuscripts going through revisions; the turn-around times have been around 2-3 months in press after acceptance. The review process currently takes 60 days, and he hopes to reduce it to 30 days. He reminded everyone that the first color photo or graph is free, so submit! There will be a double issue for the 15^th International Congress of Comparative Endocrinology (ICCE).

Henry John-Alder and Sara Hiebert Burch also addressed the DCE Business Meeting, and discussed the activities of the SICB Digital Library Advisory Board. They invited DCE members to participate in a new venture that aims to promote and facilitate the teaching of "Environmental Endocrinology" at two- and four-year colleges and universities, through a freely accessible website of peer-reviewed material. This project will develop the second "module" in the new SICB Digital Library of instructional resources (the first is a module in Biomechanics). The new SICB Digital Library will be accessible through AAAS BioScience Education Network (BEN), together with sites sponsored by other major biological societies. The aim of the Environmental Endocrinology module is to create a niche for this important and emerging field, alongside traditional instructional topics for undergraduates. All DCE members should have received an SICB-generated e-mail from Henry and Sara on March 14 about this project. Please contact Henry or Sara for more information: Sara [shieber1@swarthmore.edu], Henry [henry@aesop.rutgers.edu].

Special Thanks to Maelani M. Galima (Univ. Texas Marine Science Institute) and Kathy Sak (Calif. State Univ. Long Beach) for their help in preparing the minutes of the DCE Business Meeting.

Upcoming Events and Meetings:

1. 15^th ICCE, will be held in Boston, MA, May 23-28. See http://www.bu.edu/dbin/icce15/index.php.

2. 135^th American Fisheries Society Annual Meeting, will be held in Anchorage, AK, Sept. 11-15. See http://www.bu.edu/dbin/icce15/index.php.

3. Endocrine Society Annual Meetings, will be held in San Diego, CA, June 4-7. See http://www.endo-society.org/educationevents/annual/2005/index.cfm.

4. American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Annual Meeting, will be held in New Orleans, LA, July 12-17. See http://www.asih.org.

5. 2005 Congress of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) and the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB), will be held in Budapest, Hungary, July 2-7. See www.febs-iubmb-2005.com.

6. 196^th Meeting of the Society for Endocrinology, will be held in London, UK, Nov. 7-9, 2005. See: http://www.endocrinology.org/SFE/confs.htm

7. 7^th European Congress of Endocrinology, will be held in Göteborg, Sweden, Sept. 3-7, 2005. See: http://www.ece2005.com.

8. International Congress of Physiological Sciences, will be held in San Diego, CA, March 31-April 5, 2005. See: http://www.iups2005.org.

9. 7^th Indo-Pacific Fish Conference, will be held in Taipei, Taiwan, May 16-20. See: www.ipfc7.org.

Message from the DCE Representative to the Student/Postdoctoral Affairs Committee

Darren Lerner (dlerner@forwild.umass.edu)

Allow me to introduce myself as the new DCE representative to the Student/Postdoctoral Affairs Committee (SPDAC), which serves the student and postdoctoral members of the DCE. You may find out more about the SPDAC at the following society webpages:
http://www.sicb.org/handbook/committees.php3#studentpostdoccomm and
http://www.sicb.org/newsletters/nl11-2004/committeereports.php3#studentaffairs.

I am a PhD student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Program, having previously received a Masters degree at Oregon State University. I have worked with the USGS both in Oregon and, since 2000, in western Massachusetts at the Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center. With Sea Grant support, I have been working on the role of the HPI axis in smolt development and the effects of xenoestrogens on endocrine and behavioral development in Atlantic salmon.

At this year's Annual Meeting in San Diego, 27% of all SICB "Grants in Aid of Research (GIAR)" went to DCE students! Congratulations to Shallin Busch, Lauren M. Costa, Susannah French, Brent M. Horton, Jason Johnston, Oliver Love, and Haruka Wada!! Although none of the Fellowships of Graduate Student Travel (FGST) was awarded to DCE student members, more awards were made in 2004/5 than in previous years. Don't forget to apply in November! The award rate for the GIAR is approximately 50% and the FGST rose to 22% this year.

On to Orlando 2006. Don't forget to attend the 1st Timers Orientation, which occurs after the Welcome Social on the first night of the meeting. This gathering is NOT just for "1st timers". The venue in 2006 will include information on how to get the best out of your time at the meeting, as well as provide information on student work for the Student Support Program. Don't forget, if you are a student either presenting a poster or giving an oral presentation, you are eligible for free housing or registration if you provide some services for SICB during the meeting. Of course, on the second day of the meeting, SPDAC will be putting on the ever popular Student/Post-doc Luncheon. Join us for the free lunch and meet SICB President, Sarah A. Woodin, our SPDAC Chair, Shea R. Tuberty, and all of the SPDAC Divisional Representatives. This is a great opportunity to give face-to-face input if you have questions, comments, or suggestions for SPDAC, or the Society in general. For the last evening of the meeting, we are planning two Grad Student/Postdoc Workshops for the Orlando meeting. "Optimizing Your Graduate School Experience" will be immediately followed by "Strategies for Landing an Academic Job/Postdoc". Students and Post-docs are encouraged to attend.

Finally, if you have any comments or suggestions regarding the meeting or any of the SPDAC activities, please feel free to contact me: dlerner@forwild.umass.edu.

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NewsFlash!

DCE By-Laws changes: a current version of the proposed By-Law changes has recently been prepared by Sunny Boyd, SICB Secretary. We now have a DCE Electronic Bulletin Board at http://sicb.org/phpBB2/index.php. Please go there, look over the changes, and provide any advice or suggestions!! Our division will vote on the changes later this year!!

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DCE Elections

Candidates for Chair-elect


Henry B. John-Alder

Current Position: Professor and Director of the Graduate Program, Department of Animal Sciences, Rutgers University; Member, Graduate Program in Ecology and Evolution, Rutgers Univ.

Education: B. A. Biology, Franklin and Marshall College, 1974; M. S. Biology, Pennsylvania State University, 1979; Ph.D. Comparative Physiology, University of California, Irvine, 1983.

Professional Experience: 1983-84, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Dr. Albert F. Bennett, University of Adelaide, South Australia; 1984-85, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Dr. Ronald L. Terjung, SUNY-Upstate Medical Center; 1985-91, Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Rutgers University; 1991-97, Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Rutgers University; 0 2002, Associate Professor, Department of Animal Sciences, Rutgers University; 1998-Present, Director, Graduate Program in Animal Science, Rutgers University; 1999, Visiting Professor, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, France; 2002-Present, Professor, Department of Animal Sciences, Rutgers University; Served as NSF panelist for the Dissertation Improvement Advisory and the Ecological and Evolutionary Physiology Panels; Served on Board of Editors, Physiological and Biochemical Zoology since 1996; Member Education Committee, AIBS, 2005-Present

SICB Activities: Member since 1981; Secretary, Division of Comparative Endocrinology, 1996-97; Panelist, Grad/Post-Doc Workshop, 2003; DCE Nominating Committee, 2003-4; Chair, Education Council, 2004-Present; Served as judge for Best Student Paper and session chair at several meetings.

Other Memberships: American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Institute of Biological Sciences, American Society of Animal Science, American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, European Society for Comparative Endocrinology, Society of Behavioral Neuroendocrinology, Society for Integrative and Comparative Biologists, Society for the Study of Evolution

Research Interests: I am interested in ecological and evolutionary physiology and endocrinology. My general approach is highly integrative, crossing traditional levels of biological organization from biochemical to behavioral and blending descriptive and experimental studies in the laboratory and the field. I stress the importance of field experiments solidly grounded in natural history. My primary research project involves comparative and experimental studies on growth and sexual size dimorphism (SSD) in lizards, with a particular focus on how gonadal steroids influence growth. My other ongoing project involves integrative studies on stress, adrenal hormones, and adrenocortical cell function (with R. V. Carsia).

Goals Statement: Within SICB, DCE is one of the largest and most active divisions. Furthermore, by its very nature, endocrinology is an inherently comparative and integrative discipline. It follows that DCE should be a natural "magnet" for the general membership, but I believe we can do a better job at attracting members of other divisions to our sessions. As DCE Chair-Elect, my primary goal will be to promote our divisional appeal by encouraging sponsorship of society-wide symposia and divisional symposia of broad interest, with an eye toward more seamless and fluid interactions among divisions. I would also work to encourage our members to contribute to the environmental endocrinology module in SICB's developing digital library. Organized contributions to this module will promote the presentation of comparative and environmental endocrinology in undergraduate biology curricula and will ultimately lead young scientists to become interested in areas served by our division.

Stacia A. Sower

Current Position: Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of New Hampshire.

Education: B.A. University of Utah, 1973; M.S. Oregon State University, 1978; Ph.D. Oregon State University, 1981.

Professional Experience:Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of New Hampshire, New Hampshire, 1992-present; Interim Associate Dean of Research of CoLSA, 2005; Program Director, Integrative Animal Biology Program, NSF (1996-1997); Chair of Biological Sciences POWRE Program, NSF (1997); Visiting Professor, MacQuarie University, Australia, 1994; Visiting Professor, Kitasato University, Japan, 1992; Associate Professor, UNH, 1987-1992; Visiting Professor, University of Cape Town Medical School, South Africa, 1984-1985; Assistant Professor, UNH. 1982-1987; Research Associate, Department of Zoology, University of Washington, 1980-1983; Graduate Research Assistant, Oregon State University, 1976-1980; Fisheries Biologist, Peace Corps, Venezuela, 1973-1975.

SICB Activities: Chairperson, Committee to Evaluate Best Student Paper for Division of Comparative Endocrinology, 1986. Committee member, 1988, 1989, 1992; Secretary, DCE, 1987 (1988-1989; two-year term); Program Officer, DCE, (1995-1997); Participated in Graduate/Postdoctoral Student Workshop, 1993 and 1994; Panelist, NSF sponsored workshop "Integration of Research and Education: What are our Responsibilities?", 1996; Co-Organizer of Symposium "Honoring Erika M. Plisetskaya...", 1999; SICB Program Officer 2002-2004

Other Memberships: AAAS; Endocrine Society; Society for Neuroscience; Sigma Xi

Research Interests: Comparative molecular & biochemical, reproductive physiology and neuroendocrinology are the major focuses of my research program. My research investigates the molecular, biochemical and functional actions of brain and pituitary hormones involved in agnathan (lamprey and hagfish) reproduction. In addition, my laboratory has recently been studying endocrine disruptors in frogs.

Goal Statement: The biological sciences are undergoing sweeping and exciting changes. SICB can be one of the leaders as we move towards an increased emphasis of integrative and multidisciplinary biology. My goals include 1) being proactive and an advocate for our division and the society; and 2) promote programs and symposia to enhance the concepts of integrative and comparative endocrinology. Another goal is to retain members and attract new members, especially students and postdocs.

Candidates for Secretary-elect


Catherine R. Propper

Current Position: Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University (http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~propper)

Education: A.B., Zoology, University of California Berkeley, 1982; Ph.D. Zoology, Oregon State University, 1989. Organization for Tropical Studies, Tropical Ecology Field Course, Costa Rica, 1983.

Professional Experience: NIMH NRSA Post-doctoral Fellowship, University of Colorado (Richard Jones, Mentor) 1989-1990. Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, NAU, 1991-1996; Associate Professor, NAU, 1996-2002; Professor, NAU, 2002-present; grant panels (NSF, EPA).

SICB Activities: First annual meeting was 1984 A.S.Z., in Denver and I have attended regularly since then. I often bring between 2 and 6 students to the meeting presenting posters or oral presentation. DCE representative, Student/Postdoctoral Affairs Committee (SPDAC), 1990-1991; I have been a judge for the DCE best student presentation award twice. I organized the 1998 Western Regional Conference of Comparative Endocrinology held at NAU in Flagstaff, AZ.

Other Memberships: AAAS, Endocrine Society, Sigma Xi.

Research Interests: My main interests are in how environmental information gets translated into behavioral and reproductive responses and what role the neuroendocrine system plays in the translation. I use amphibians as model systems.  Currently, projects in my laboratory include 1) studies on how environmental contaminants may act as endocrine disruptors to affect development and adult stress responses and behavior, 2) to understand the interaction between the environment and molecular mechanisms involved in sexual differentiation during development, and 3) the use of nanotechnology to develop sensitive field-based assays for endocrine disrupting compounds. Specifically, we have been investigating a very commonly used pesticide, endosulfan, and its effects on reproduction and development in four different systems, tadpole development, mosquitofish sexual dimorphism, salamander pheromone production, and amphibian stress responses.  We have also investigated the effects of a common industrial compound on sexual differentiation, and we are studying the complex physiological events that result from exposure to environmental mixes of compounds found in wastewater.  

Goals Statement: As a 20 year member of SICB and the Division of Comparative Endocrinology, I fully appreciate and am grateful for all of the professional relationships I developed over the years. As secretary I will facilitate these relationships by 1) managing the Newsletter for the DCE, and 2) working with SICB to have a link to a list of all DCE members (including post-docs, graduate students and undergraduates) with a brief statement of their interests. I will also provide a focal point for advertising graduate and post-doctoral positions within the comparative endocrinology community.


Stephen D. McCormick

Current Position: Section Leader, Physiology, USGS, Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center, Turners Falls, MA, and Adjunct Professor of Biology, Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Education: B.S. Biology, Bates College, 1977; Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology & Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography, 1983.

Professional Experience: Graduate Program Director, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Program, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (2003-present). Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Visiting Scientist, University of Hokkaido (2002). James Chair Visiting Professor, St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, Canada, (1999). Acting Director, Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center, USGS, Turners Falls, MA (1998-1999). Research Fellow, Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo (1990). National Institute of Health Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California at Berkeley (1986-1989). Research Fellow (Swedish Natural Science Research Council), Department of Zoophysiology, University of Goteborg (1986). Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, St. Andrews Biological Station, New Brunswick, Canada (1983-1986).

SICB Activities: SICB member since 1980. Member of the SICB Conservation Committee (2004-present). Chair of Student Awards Committee (2000). Member of DCE Nominating Committee (1996).

Other Memberships: American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Fisheries Society (President, Physiology Section, 1998-9).

Research Interests: Environmental and hormonal control of osmoregulation, development, growth and energetics in fish. Current research includes the hormonal control of salinity tolerance and mechanisms of ion transport in anadromous fish (salmon, shad and sturgeon), and endocrine disruption of developmental physiology in anadromous fish.

Goal Statement: The annual SICB meeting serves as an intellectual and personal touchstone for members of the Division of Comparative Endocrinology. The meeting and our Society help to broaden our horizons both within our specific discipline and biology as a whole. The Secretary of DCE can help attract as many faculty members, post-docs and students to take part in the annual meeting by promoting exciting contributions and communicating to our membership the many attributes that the meeting and division have to offer.

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Link to officer list on DCE page