Message from DOB Officers

Ulrike Muller, Chair, chair.dob@sicb.org; Cody Howard, Chair-Elect, chairelect.dob@sicb.org; Karolina Heyduk, Secretary, secretary.dob@sicb.org; Morgan Furze, Program Officer; dpo.dob@sicb.org; Bryan MacNeill, Student/Postdoc Representative

Hello fellow DOB-ers! We are coming off an excellent in-person meeting in Austin this past January, and are excited to share some news and events with our members! if you missed it, please check out the minutes of our annual Members Meeting, posted on our divisional website.

Best Student Presentation Award Winners!

First and foremost, we’re so proud of all of the excellent student talk and poster presentations we had at the SICB meetings. Also a thank you to the judges who helped make the student presentation awards possible! We’re pleased to announce our two winners for this year:

Best student poster:

Jasen Liu (University of California, Davis) won best student poster for his poster titled “Evolution of floral volatile composition across a specialized pollination system.” 

 

 

 

 

 

Best student talk:

Patrick Wright (Christopher Newport University) won the Rising Star in Botany award for his talk “Accumulation of heavy metals in an agricultural weed and implications for phytoremediation.” 

Congratulations to all student presenters and our winners!

Idea Incubators

DoB members Morgan Furze, Ulrike Muller, David Sleboda, and Janet Steven organized a series of idea incubator workshops focused on the question: How do plants, animals, fungi, and algae solve the same problems differently? Workshops took place online and in person in Austin and provided a space for SICB-members to discuss common themes underlying seemingly disparate forms of life. Incubator workshops are one of the many ways by which DoB is integrating itself into the broader SICB community while also fostering cross-kingdom literacy!

DOB Officer Transitions

We bid farewell to Chris Martine, who stepped off as Chair of the Division of Botany as of the January meeting. Chris was instrumental in getting the Division of Botany at SICB off the ground and we’re thankful for his past leadership! 

And we welcome Cody Howard as our new Chair-Elect. Cody was elected in a special election last Fall, and we’re glad to have his leadership in the division!

While we have no officer elections this year, DOB will be voting on a few minor amendments to our division’s bylaws, to keep our bylaws in line with changes in the society-wide bylaws. The ballot is here – please vote!