I hope you were all able to attend the SICB virtual meeting this year. I think opinion is universal that despite the new and unfamiliar format, the virtual format was a great success. Talks were well attended, and I was truly impressed with the quality of the research and the polished nature of the presentations. Though we all missed getting to interact with each other in person, we enjoyed many features of the new format, such as the ability to watch talks that we might otherwise have had to miss, and increased participation from international students and speakers. We hope to continue some elements of the new format in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/b>Bern Lecture. <\/b>Our Bern lecturer this year was Prof. Dr. Michael Hau, who gave a wonderful, and very well-attended, virtual talk titled, “Hormone-mediated plasticity: is there an optimal hormonal phenotype?<\/a>” I found it a wonderful discussion of possible hormonal phenotypes and how hormonal responses interact with fitness, with particularly fascinating insights about reaction norms, different types of hormone-trait relationships, and the role of plasticity. However, we all terribly missed the opportunity to meet with Ela in person – hopefully we will all be able to see each other again in the near future.<\/span><\/p>\n Best Student Presentations. <\/b>Our two annual competitions for Best Student Talk and Best Student Poster were particularly intense this year. All divisions kicked off the meeting on day 1 with best student talk sessions, and all were very well attended; the DCE poster competition then had extended judging over several more weeks to allow all of our volunteer judges the time to meet with multiple students. In total, 15 students participated in these two DCE competitions. The winner of the Aubrey Gorbman Best Student Oral Presentation was <\/span>Grascen Shidemantle<\/b>, and the winner of the Lynn Riddiford Best Student Poster was <\/span>Carley Lowe<\/b>. Congratulations to both students for their excellent research and fine presentations! Special thanks to all of our hardworking volunteer judges as well.<\/span><\/p>\n Symposia. <\/b>DCE co-sponsored 4 symposia at the 2021 meeting: Blinded By The Light<\/a>, Biology Beyond The Classroom<\/a>, Sending And Receiving Signals<\/a>, and Manakin Genomics<\/a>. All of these symposia reached across division lines and brought together a great mix of speakers from different fields of biology. Start thinking about symposia for 2023! (Remember, symposia must be planned more than a year in advance.)<\/span><\/p>\n Other meeting activities<\/b>. DCE Student\/Post-doc Representative Carla Madelaire once again organized the “(Virtual) Lunch With A Comparative Endocrinologist” mentor\/mentee matching event, as well as our annual DCE Data Blitz social media effort for this year’s meeting. Impressively, the Data Blitz had even greater participation this year than last year, and both events were a great success. Our thanks to Carla for continuing these two events focused on enhancing the experience of DCE students and postdocs.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>Changes in DCE officers. <\/b>At the end of this year’s extended meeting, Brian Walker and Timothy Greives stepped down as DCE Program Officer and DCE Secretary, respectively. Sara O’Brien is DCE’s new Program Officer and Christine Lattin is DCE’s new Secretary (while I, Kathleen Hunt, continue as DCE Chair for one more year). We are very grateful to Brian and Tim for their tireless efforts, particularly this year when stress was high, workloads just as high, and everything so much more complicated than usual. I have to extend special thanks to Brian for staying on as Program Officer a year longer than he originally expected (due to DCE’s recent vote to extend the term of his position) \u2014 especially given that the extra year turned out to involve organizing a new and complex virtual meeting!<\/span><\/p>\n Upcoming elections. <\/b>This summer, DCE members will vote to elect a new DCE Chair-Elect and a new DCE Secretary-Elect. Please watch your email for announcements about the election, and vote when election time rolls around – we need your input!<\/span><\/p>\n Next Student\/Postdoc Representative. <\/b>We are also searching for the next Student\/Postdoctoral Representative to succeed Carla Madelaire, who will step down at the end of the Phoenix, AZ meeting in January 2022. This is not an elected position, so graduate students and postdocs can self-nominate simply by sending a letter of interest to the DCE Chair (me) at the email address above.<\/span><\/p>\n Other business. <\/b>When the pandemic hit, DCE officers were just about to launch surveys and discussions regarding possible rebranding or re-naming of DCE, including an associated discussion of the annual $10 fee charged to DCE members (the fee is a requirement of DCE’s membership in the International Federation of Comparative Endocrinology Societies). Due to the pandemic and highly increased workloads and stress, we had to postpone these discussions. However, we hope to return to these issues later this year – please stay tuned. In the meantime, if any of you have thoughts on the future of DCE and what trajectory you would like DCE to take, please contact me or any of the DCE officers. This is your division, and we want to make it work for you, and make sure our division has a vibrant future ahead!<\/span><\/p>\n FUTURE MEETINGS.<\/b> We are dearly hoping to be able to convene in person in January 2022 for the Phoenix meeting. This means that now is the time to think about Bern speakers for Phoenix. The Bern nomination committee has an existing list of nominees, but you can still add to the list. And yes, you can self-nominate! Contact any DCE officer for details. We also wish to encourage symposium ideas for Austin in 2023. We would particularly like to encourage symposia that reach across SICB division lines, or that cover taxa or topics not being studied by current DCE leadership. Symposia are a great opportunity to pull together speakers who might not otherwise interact with each other – and remember, all SICB symposia result in publications in the SICB journal Integrative and Comparative Biology. Contact any DCE officer if you have symposium ideas.<\/span><\/p>\n I wish you all a safe and healthy 2021, and hope we will all get to see each other again, fully vaccinated, in Phoenix next year!<\/span><\/p>\n In memory of Dr. Richard Jones. <\/b>We are saddened to relay the news that long-time ASZ\/SICB and DCE member Dr. Richard E. Jones, 80, passed away on February 23, 2021, after a six-month battle with dementia.\u00a0 A celebration of Dr. Jones’ life will be conducted sometime after COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. If any DCE member should wish to contact Dr. Jones’ family, please get in touch with the DCE chair (chair.dce@sicb.org) for the family’s contact information.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n David O. Norris<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Dick Jones was born in California and appropriately received his BA, MA, and PhD in comparative endocrinology at the University of California, Berkeley, under the direction of Professor Howard Bern in 1968.\u00a0 After a short stint at the Hershey Medical School in Pennsylvania, Dick joined the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1970 as an Assistant Professor of Biology where he taught Human Anatomy and Vertebrate Reproduction until his retirement in 1998.\u00a0 He was then elected Professor Emeritus by the Department of Environmental, Population and Organismic Biology (currently the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology). Dick\u2019s dream as a new professor was to do research in comparative endocrinology and surround himself with graduate students. And he succeeded in both. His goal in both teaching and research was to get students to think \u201coutside the box\u201d and formulate hypotheses to explain things in the natural world and design sound experiments to test those hypotheses. He received an \u201cExcellence in Teaching Award\u201d from the College of Arts and Sciences for his efforts. Dick was happiest when he had made a new hypothesis himself and could test it with innovative experimental designs.\u00a0 And he did this not only in science but in his favorite avocation, fly fishing. During his career he mentored many graduate students and numerous undergraduate students in his Laboratory of Comparative Reproduction. He published more than 150 scientific journal articles and book chapters dealing with fishes, amphibians, reptiles, and birds and two important scientific books (RE Jones 1978, The Ovary <\/em>(Plenum Press) and Hormones and Reproduction in Fishes, Amphibians, and Reptiles<\/em> (Norris DO and RE Jones, 1987, Plenum Press, still being cited today).\u00a0 Additionally, he wrote a successful textbook Human Reproduction<\/em> (RE Jones and KH Lopez, 4th<\/sup> edition, Academic Press, 2013).\u00a0 His research in lizard gynecology was supported by numerous grants from NIH. During his academic career Dick was an active member of the Division of Comparative Endocrinology of the American Society of Zoology (ASZ) that later became the Society for Integrative and Comparative Endocrinology (SICB).\u00a0 He was a valuable contributor to the Western Regional Conferences on Comparative Endocrinology that met regularly from 1964-2006.<\/p>\n Dick died at the age of 80 after a six-month battle with dementia. Unfortunately, he did not go as he had often wished: face-down in a trout stream with a fish on his line.\u00a0 He is survived by his devoted wife, Betty, and four sons: Christopher Jones, Peter Jones, Ryan Hibberd and Evan Jones.\u00a0 His wry humor and quick wit as well as his scientific acumen are deeply missed by all who knew him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sara O\u2019Brien. <\/b>DPO.DCE@sicb.org<\/em><\/p>\n Here\u2019s hoping this finds you and yours safe and healthy. #SICB2021 was a much different experience than usual due to the ongoing pandemic. While we have always prided ourselves on the welcoming environment the annual SICB conference provides – the ability to catch up with colleagues and friends, to provide students with a safe and encouraging space to present their work, often for the first time – this year we found ourselves navigating a virtual conference.<\/span><\/p>\n I want to offer a BIG thanks to all who attended the various real time virtual meeting components from January through February. Thank you also to those who watched presentations and offered kind, constructive, and critical feedback to presenters asynchronously. The common theme that remained through this year\u2019s conference was the excellent quality of both talks and posters! Hopefully we will be able to convene and catch up with each other in person next year, but for now a hardy congrats to all presenters and attendees in successfully navigating the new virtual environment.<\/span><\/p>\n I would also like to thank my colleague, former advisor, and friend, Dr. Michaela Hau, for giving an enlightening Howard Bern Lecture. Her presentation, \u201cHormone-mediated phenotypic plasticity: is there an optimal hormonal phenotype?\u201d took a long view and stimulated us all to think about this question in our work going forward.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>As mentioned by the Chair, I would also like to congratulate the two winners of the DCE student competitions. The Aubrey Gorbam Best Oral Presentation was awarded to Grascen Shidemantel from Binghamton University, and the Lynn Riddiford Award for Best Student Poster was awarded to Carley Lowe from Northern Arizona University. Many thanks to all of the judges who attended this year\u2019s student talks and visited the posters. Choosing only two winners from all of these excellent presentations was very difficult.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The <\/span>2022 SICB Conference <\/b>in sunny <\/span>Phoenix, Arizona<\/b> will be here before we know it. Please check the SICB website and the \u201cUpcoming meetings\u201d tab for more information on the exciting DCE sponsored and co-sponsored symposia. For anyone who is thinking about organizing a symposium for the 2023 meeting in Austin, TX, please note that proposals will be due in August 2021. We look forward to seeing all of your faces in person, and until then, please stay safe and healthy!<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Christine Lattin, <\/b>secretary.DCE@sicb.org<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>Hi everyone! I am taking over from Tim Grieves, who did a terrific job as DCE Secretary for the last two years. Thanks so much to Tim for his service to the Division!<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>Even though we couldn\u2019t all be together in Washington, DC, it was still wonderful to see so much exciting new work from DCE Members at the virtual meeting. I spent two months bingeing on all of your cool science, which was frankly pretty awesome to be able to do. I hope you enjoyed the conference too, and here\u2019s hoping that next year we can do it in person.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>DCE election season is ahead of us, and this year we have elections for DCE Chair-elect and Secretary-elect. We are very lucky to have two excellent candidates for both open positions. Please read their biographies and candidate statements and take a few moments to cast your ballot when the time comes. Everyone who was a member at the time of the Annual Meeting is eligible to vote.<\/span><\/p>\nHighlights of the 2021 meeting for DCE include:\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sicb.burkclients.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Ela_Hau_with_Bern_plaque-289x300.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sicb.burkclients.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Grascen_Shidemantle_DCE_Talk_winner_in_field2-225x300.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sicb.burkclients.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Carley_Lowe_DCE_Poster_winner_with_baleen-284x300.jpeg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\tRemembering Dr. Richard Evan Jones<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sicb.burkclients.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Jones-225x300.jpg\")
\u00a0Professor Richard Evan Jones, <\/strong>May 13, 1940-February 23<\/strong>, 2021<\/strong><\/p>\nMessage from the Program Officer<\/b><\/h2>\n
Message from the Secretary<\/b><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sicb.burkclients.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Lucia_Mentesana_datablitz_image-263x300.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sicb.burkclients.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Grascen_Shidemantle_datablitz_image-300x169.png\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sicb.burkclients.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Jamie_Cornelius-300x199.jpeg\")
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sicb.burkclients.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Greg_Demas-238x300.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sicb.burkclients.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Jenny_Ouyang-225x300.jpg\")