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Division of Comparative Physiology & Biochemistry (DCPB): 2001 Fall Newsletter
In this newsletter:
Message
from the Chair
Steven C. Hand
Our Division sponsors the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology.
This spring the review of proposals for the editorship of PBZ was
completed, and I am pleased to announce that Dr. James W. Hicks was
selected as the new Editor-in-Chief, with Drs. Al Bennett and Tim Bradley
as Associate Editors. All three of these physiologists are professors at
the University of California, Irvine. It is anticipated that the move of
the editorial office from the University of Colorado, Boulder to Irvine
will be completed this fall. The institutional support for the journal
will continue to be strong at UC-Irvine, and the day-to-day operation of
the journal will be in very capable hands under the new leadership of Drs.
Hicks, Bennett and Bradley. As past editor of the journal, Dr. Greg Snyder
is to be congratulated on the excellent work and milestones accomplished
during his recently completed tenure. A hearty thank you from the Division
is in order for the efforts Dr. Snyder and his staff over the last five
years.
As a consequence of the untimely death of Larry McEdward (Program Officer,
Division of Invertebrate Zoology), all SICB Divisions have been encouraged
by President Marvalee Wake to consider adding a formal amendment to their
bylaws to provide a means for filling unexpected vacancies in offices (due
to resignations, deaths, etc.). To this end, I would like to propose the
following draft amendment for consideration and discussion at our 2002
annual business meeting in Anaheim: "In the case when a divisional office
is unexpectedly vacated, the current Nominating Committee will recommend to
the Chair an interim officer who will be appointed to serve for not more
than 12 months, during which time a divisional election will be held to
select a person to fill the vacancy."
Please note the call for nominations for the 2002 George A. Bartholomew
Award that is posted on our divisional website. Nominations should be sent
to Dr. Ray Huey, and review of nomination materials will begin October 8
and continue until an awardee is chosen. Please see the announcement for
more details.
A conference on comparative physiology, sponsored by the American
Physiology Society, will be held in San Diego in less than a year (August
25-28th, 2002). The conference is entitled "The Power of Comparative
Physiology: Evolution, Integration and Applied" and should be an exciting
one for the membership of our division. More details can be found at the
conference website: www.the-aps.org/meetings/aps/san_diego/home.htm
Finally, DCPB is sponsoring three symposia at the SICB annual meeting in
Anaheim, and we anticipate exceptionally large numbers of contributed talks
and posters. I look forward to seeing you there January 2-6.
Message
from the Program Officer
Jon Harrison
Greetings!
Anaheim: The Anaheim meeting has three symposia co-sponsored by DCPB:
- "Biomechanics of Adhesion", organized by Kellar Autumn and Robert Full;
- "Dynamics and Energetics of Animal Swimming and Flying", organized by
Malcolm Gordon, Ian Bartol, and Jay Hove; and
- "The Physiological Ecology of Rocky Intertidal Organisms: From Molecules to
Ecosystems", organized by Lars Tomanek and Brian Helmuth.
See details for these and other meeting symposia at:
www.sicb.org/meetings/2002/symposia/index.php3
Other items of special interest to DCPB include:
1) opening session talk by Robert Full, "Bipedal bugs, galloping ghosts,
and gripping geckos: Bioinspired computer animation, robotics, and
adhesives", Wed. 8 PM,
2) Bartholomew Award lecture by ????, Thurs. 6:30 PM,
3) NSF funding opportunities with Bill Zamer (NSF Integrative Animal
Biology program officer and SICB member), Thurs. 7:30 PM and Fri. 11:45 AM,
4) DCPB Business meeting, Thurs. night. Come, meet famous and infamous
people, have fun, and get involved in the division!
There are also a number of very interesting symposia in the other
divisions, as well as workshops on grantsmanship, phylogenetics, and web
databases. It should be a great meeting!
Students: Remember you can get support to attend this meeting; the
application is due Nov. 16. See:
www.sicb.org/meetings/2002/studentsupport.php3
Other meetings of interest, as you begin planning your next year:
American Physiological Society: The Power of Comparative Physiology:
Evolution, Integration and Applied. August 24-28, 2002. Town and Country
Hotel, San Diego, CA.
www.the-aps.org/meetings/aps/san_diego/home.htm. This promises to
be an outstanding international comparative physiology meeting.
SICB annual meeting, Toronto, January 4-8, 2003. I can't tell you any
specifics yet, as the final decisions have not been made, but six excellent
DCPB proposals have been submitted, CSZ is sponsoring physiological
symposia, and there are also several cross-society symposia with DCPB
involvement. It appears that this meeting will be our most vigorous SICB
comparative physiology and biochemistry meeting in many years. Thanks to
all the organizers!
Message from the Secretary
Jeannette E. Doeller
An election will be held this fall for the office of DCPB secretary.
Candidates are Mary Chamberlin (Ohio University) and Bernard Rees
(University of New Orleans). Candidate CVs can be found in the Spring 2001
Newsletter. You will receive a paper ballot this fall. Please return your
completed ballot to SICB Headquarters ASAP. The new secretary will
officially assume the duties at the end of the Anaheim meeting. Thanks to
both candidates for their willingness to stand for election.
Bill Zamer, Integrative Animal Biology Program Director in the Division of
Integrative Biology and Neuroscience at NSF, would like to bring this
program announcement to our attention. The new NSF Biocomplexity in the
Environment program descriptions are on the NSF web site
( www.nsf.gov). From the NSF home page, click on Environmental
Research and Education, and then click on the link in the upper right-hand
corner for Biocomplexity in the Environment Special Competition.
Investigators should explore all of those targeted areas near the bottom of
the page. Please note the area describing Genome-Enabled Environmental
Science and Engineering (GEN-EN). Clicking here will open the following
web page www.nsf.gov/pubs/2002/nsf02010/nsf02010.html#genen.
The following is a message from Malcolm Gordon and Soraya Bartol, co-chairs
of the UCLA Conference on Experimental Approaches to Conservation Biology,
held September 11-14, 2001, to all actual and intended participants. This
message expresses some thoughts and feelings we may all have had in light
of recent events:
"This is a short summary, to inform all concerned, describing how much of
the Conference we were able to salvage in the aftermath of the sad and
terrible events of Tuesday, 9/11. The mood was somber, but we think it is
accurate to say that everyone who was here felt that it was good that we
did as much as we could to salvage scientific and human value from a
totally unforeseeable set of circumstances. We had an interesting and
informative meeting that was shorter and more restricted in scope than what
we had planned, but it was still stimulating and high in quality. It was a
small victory for values other than terrorism. We had a total of about 40
participants altogether. Based on the prior arrangements we had hoped to
have about 100. Fortunately, no one travelling to the conference was
involved with the events of 9/11. However, as we have learned since, more
than a few people who were on their way to LA were returned to the points
of origin of their flights, or were grounded in various places. We had
invited speakers grounded from Atlanta, Georgia to Honolulu, Hawaii. One
intrepid speaker, Mike Hadfield, made it here on the first flight from
Honolulu to LA as air service began to be restored. He arrived in time to
give his paper. About half the
scheduled speakers did not make it at all. Events made it necessary to
cancel all activities on both Tuesday, 9/11 and Wednesday, 9/12. We had two
full days of program on Thursday and Friday. A total of 17 30-minute papers
were presented, 8 on Thursday, 9 on Friday. We had panel discussions of
each day's presentations, and the Thursday program concluded with the
scheduled media workshop on "Breaking through to broader audiences." Three
of the planned posters were presented on Thursday. The closing dinner took
place Friday evening. On Saturday a group of ten participants and family
members made a very interesting and informative field trip to Catalina
Island to see various aspects of the
endangered species protection and restoration programs, and the exotic
species control programs, being carried out there by the Catalina Island
Conservancy.
We anticipate that the book to be published by the University of California
Press that will be based primarily upon the proposed invited presentations
will proceed as planned. If any of you have comments or questions about
any of this, please let us know. For those of you who were here, thank you
again for your willingness to proceed as best we could. It was a good,
useful, informative, and inspiring gathering. For those of you who did not
make it, thank you for trying to get here. We hope everyone's lives and
work will go well in this new and potentially more difficult environment."
Message from the Bartholomew Award Committee Chair
Raymond B. Huey
The Bartholomew Award was established in December 1992 by the Division of
Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry of the American Society of
Zoologists. The guidelines were originally developed by a committee [Ray
Huey (chair), Brian Barnes, Malcolm Gordon, Henry John-Alder, and Mary
Murphy] appointed by Linda Mantel, Chair of the Division. The committee's
proposal to establish the award was then presented to the annual business
meeting that December and approved with enthusiasm.
The primary purpose of the award is to acknowledge outstanding young
investigators in functional biology, and to do so at a time in their
careers when honors are most important. We felt as well that establishing
this award would add to the growing momentum in this field. We viewed the
American Society of Zoologists as the appropriate society to house the
award, because of its long tradition of supporting functional and
integrative approaches.
Candidates are eligible for up to seven years post Ph.D. They can either
be nominated for the award or can apply directly. A committee appointed by
the Chair of the Division screens the candidates and makes a recommendation
to the Chair. The winner gives a special lecture at the annual meeting of
the Society, normally scheduled to follow the business meeting. The
winner's travel expenses are covered by an endowment. We hope that the
endowment will grow sufficiently to provide a cash award as well. At the
Yr. 2000 meeting in Chicago, a cash honorarium was generously provided by
Sable Systems, Inc.
The decision to call this the "George A. Bartholomew Award" was a natural
for many reasons. Most importantly, Bart's record as a mentor and
supporter of young scientists in functional biology is without par. In
addition, as much as anyone, he defined and epitomized functional biology;
and he was also a former President of the Society. Moreover, we felt that
naming the award after him would immediately convey prestige, significance,
and recognition to the award.
The roster of Bartholomew Awardees has been outstanding, and all have
established remarkable careers (two have already received endowed
professorships!). Their presentations have become an exciting and
well-attended highlight of the annual meeting.
George A. Bartholomew Award Winners
| 1993 | Barbara A. Block (Charles & Elizabeth Prothro Professor, Stanford University & Hopkins Marine Station) |
| 1994 | Michael H. Dickinson (Williams Professor, University of California, Berkeley) |
| 1995 | Peter C. Wainwright (Associate Professor, University of California, Davis) |
| 1996 | Stephen M. Secor (Assistant Professor, University of Alabama) |
| 1997 | Gretchen E. Hofmann (Assistant Professor, Arizona State University) |
| 1998 | Tyrone B. Hayes (Associate Professor, University of California, Berkeley) |
| 2000 | Kathleen Gilmour (Assistant Professor, Carleton University) |
| 2001 | Martin Wikelski (Assistant Professor, Princeton University) |
Link to officer list on DCPB page
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