Message from DEDE Leadership
Jim Adelman, chair.dede@sicb.org; Patricia C. Lopes, secretary.dede@sicb.org; Laura Mydlarz, dpo.dede@sicb.org
We are looking forward to this year’s SICB Annual Meeting in Austin, TX. We are busy programming the meeting and are excited to announce that we have received 1800 abstracts, of which 709 are contributed posters, 937 are contributed talks, we have submissions from 26 countries and 1085 student presentations. Specifically, DEDE had 87 abstracts and 65 of those were from student presenters! With record number of student presenters also comes record numbers of those that want to participate in our Best Student Competition and this program depends on volunteer judges, so please sign up as a judge for the Best Student Presentations when you register, or email dpo.dede@sicb.org to volunteer. New this year in Austin, we will have a closing party that will celebrate our Best Student Presenters, Best Student Judges and all participants!
The SICB annual meeting seems to be back to pre-pandemic numbers but with the inclusion of the new SICB+ platform that makes it possible for everyone to participate in our annual meeting. Following the in-person meeting, SICB+ will allow participants to view extended virtual content until mid-March! We are pleased at the advanced safety precautions that are in place for a safe and fun conference experience.
DEDE will be co-sponsoring 4 symposia at the 2023 Annual Meeting:
- Large-scale biological phenomena arising from small-scale biophysical processes
Organizers: Jeanette Wheeler, Karen Chan - Genomics of marine larval evolution and development
Organizers: Christina Zakas, Chema Martin - Envisioning a Diverse, Inclusive & Safe Future for Field Biology
Organizers: Vanessa K Hilliard Young, Robin Verble, Corinne L. Richards Zawacki - Sexual diversity and variation
Organizers: Kelsey Lewis, Sam Sharpe
If you have ideas for a symposium for future meetings, please email the division’s program officer (Laura Mydlarz) at dpo.dede@sicb.org. The deadline for symposia proposal tends to be very early, so start brainstorming ideas during the conference!
We will run the “Meet an Ecoimmunologist/Disease Ecologist” event in person during the annual meeting. This event is being organized by Jenn Houtz, our student/postdoc representative, and it provides students and postdocs with an opportunity to network with established professionals and meet other students/postdocs in our field. We will solicit mentors and send a signup form to student/postdoc registrants in December via the email you provide during registration. Email Jenn Houtz (jlh498@cornell.edu) with any questions.
We are active on Twitter (@SICB_DEDE) and we would like to encourage all members interested in the DEDE division to follow us for news on papers and other important information. The other thing we use Twitter for is to remind people to apply for leadership positions.
In 2023, we will have a new Chair-Elect starting! Please welcome Lauren Fuess to DEDE! Lauren is an assistant professor at Texas State University who studies the interplay between symbiotic relationships (spanning mutualism to parasitism) and host immunity. We are excited to have her join the DEDE leadership! If you are interested in serving in DEDE’s leadership, please be in touch with Patricia Lopes at secretary.dede@sicb.org and she can help you prepare your materials.
We offer a big thanks to Joel Slade for serving as the DEDE representative and assistant editor for Integrative and Comparative Biology since 2019. We also thank Tosha Kelly for stepping into the role of journal representative and assistant editor and to Daniel Becker for taking on a role of assistant editor.
On December 1, 2022, applications will be due for the Robert Lochmiller Award, to be awarded to an early career investigator for distinguished contributions to the fields of ecological immunology and disease ecology. Eligible candidates are those who are members of SICB and who have completed their doctorate within the past ten years at the time of application. Candidates may apply directly or be nominated and both types of candidates will be evaluated equivalently. Candidates should use the application form provided here to submit: a one-page description of their work, two reprints of their strongest works, and a curriculum vitae. In their description of their work (<500 words), applicants should highlight how their work has contributed to the overall fields of ecoimmunology and/or disease ecology in recent years, as well as their potential for mentoring new and diverse scientists in these fields. Candidates must also have two letters of recommendation forwarded to the Awards Committee Chair (dpo.dede@sicb.org). The award recipient will be announced at the annual meeting.
In addition, please note there are two important opportunities from SICB’s Broadening Participation committee. The Professional Development Award (PDA) is intended to help students, post-docs, and faculty members from a variety of underrepresented groups to attend the SICB annual meeting, by defraying the costs of travel, lodging, and registration. The application deadline for this award passed on October 24, but members should keep it in mind for future years. In addition, the Broadening Participation committee will be running its mentorship program again, with multiple options for both junior and senior SICB members to get involved. There’ll be an option to express your interest and learn more about this program during the meeting registration process; we encourage everyone to do so!
Once again, we wanted to highlight that we can add items to the SICB Monthly Member Updates to share information about meetings, workshops, or other opportunities in ecoimmunology and disease ecology. So, if you didn’t share some news or information during this Fall SICB newsletter, please be in touch with the Division Secretary (secretary.dede@sicb.org) with the information you want to disseminate. This needs to be done no later than the 4th of any given month.