Message from the Program Officer
Anne Maglia
At the 2001 meetings, DSEB will sponsor several contributed paper sessions and will co-sponsor two symposia: "The Lesser-Known Protostome Taxa: Evolution, Development and Ecology." These promise to be exciting, informative, and well attended. Also, as part of an ongoing series of hands-on workshops designed to help non-systematists use systematic tools, we will sponsor the second "Phylogenetics for Dummies" workshop. This year's topic will be "Picking a Tree from the Forest" and will build on last year's workshop that covered how to map characters onto an existing tree (to understand character evolution). This year we will evaluate different methods of analyzing data ( = coming up with a tree) and discuss the different methods of showing support for trees. Everyone is encouraged to attend, and feel free to bring questions or trees from your own research!
It is not too early to be thinking about workshop and informal symposium ideas for the 2002 Anaheim meeting. For divisional sponsored symposia (i.e., those intended for publication), the deadline has already passed with several proposal submitted. However, we can still promote informal symposia, workshops, and paper sessions centered around a common theme. We can also start making plans for symposia for the 2003 meeting.
The upcoming Chicago meeting would be a great time for you to get involved in the DSEB program. I'd particularly like to encourage students and "fringe" members to take an active role in deciding the directions in which our program should go. Have any ideas or comments about how to change or improve our program? Stop by the DSEB business meeting, find me at the meetings, or send me an email. I'd love to hear any suggestions or ideas you may have. See you in Chicago!