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Division of Invertebrate Zoology (DIZ): 2002 Fall Newsletter



In this newsletter:




Message from the Chair

Rachel Ann Merz

Greetings All,
I hope this note finds you well and happily involved in the pursuit of knowledge about Invertebrates and/or the dispensing of same to eager students. The Toronto meeting looks to have a wonderful array of DIZ papers and posters. In addition, we will have our annual shared social with AMS, and have invited DEE to join us this year to increase our opportunities to interact with those in the society who have interests close to ours. The main agenda items for the business meeting include voting on the following amendment to our bylaws, discussing ways to boost the Libbie Hyman Scholarship endowment and welcoming in the new DIZ Chair. Please let me know if you have other things that you would like to see on the agenda or any comments about the proposed amendment. Hope to see you in Toronto

Proposed Amendment the DIZ bylaws:
"In the circumstance where an elected DIZ officer is unable to complete his or her term of office, the following provisions are made: If the office of Secretary or Program Officer is vacated early, the DIZ Chair, in consultation with the DIZ Executive Committee and the SICB President, is empowered to appoint someone to serve until elections can be held to fill the position. If the office of Division Chair is vacant, the DIZ Executive Committee, in consultation with the SICB President, must appoint someone to be the interim Chair until an election is held."





Message from the Program Officer

Penny Barnes

The upcoming SICB meeting in Toronto promises to be both exciting and diverse and I encourage DIZ members to attend. Although DIZ has no sponsored symposia in the upcoming meeting, a number of the symposia will contain presentations of interest to DIZ members. As usual, DIZ will be well represented in the contributed paper sessions. An exciting event scheduled for the 2003 Toronto meeting is the Kowalevsky Mini-Symposium, in which recipients of the Kowalevsky Medal will address diverse topics in the area of comparative and evolutionary embryology. Don't forget to attend the social! The DIZ/AMS joint social has expanded and, in Toronto, members of the Division of Ecology and Evolution will be joining us. The first DIZ/AMS/DEE social is scheduled for the night of January 6th (Monday) from 6:30 to 8 pm (check the meeting program to confirm).

Great news! DIZ has three symposia scheduled for New Orleans in 2004. Scott Nichols and Gert Wörheide are co-organizing the symposium "Sponges: new views of old animals". DIZ and the SICB Division of Evolutionary Developmental Biology will join together to sponsor "Model Systems for the Basal Metazoa: Cnidarians, Ctenophores, and Placozoans" organized by Neil Blackstone. In addition, SICB's Division of Comparative Endocrinology and DIZ will co-sponsor "EcoPhysiology and Conservation: The Contribution of Endocrinology and Immunology" organized by Rob Stevenson and Shea Tuberty. Congratulations to all on excellent proposals! All symposia proposals submitted for consideration were impressive and the Program Officers had an extremely difficult task in selecting symposia for the New Orleans meeting.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that symposia are now planned more than one year in advance. For example, proposals for the 2004 New Orleans meeting were submitted in early September 2002. So, after the upcoming Toronto meeting, please start thinking about symposia ideas for the 2005 meeting in San Diego! Remember that the symposia are key elements of the SICB annual meeting and are the primary means by which the interests and activities of the various divisions are promoted within the society.

See you in Toronto!




Message from the Secretary

Will Jaeckle

I hope that you all have had a successful research year and will arrive at the SICB meeting in Toronto willing to share the results of your efforts. As our Program Officer (Penny Barnes) has noted in her message, there are a number of symposia that should be of interest to all of us and I'm certain that our Division will be well represented in Contributed Paper and Poster sessions.

I encourage our membership to assist Student Awards Committee Chair Sara Lindsay in the demanding job of evaluating student presentations in competition for our Division's Best Student Paper (oral presentation) Award and Best Student Poster Award, and the Adrian Wenner Strong Inference Award.  In addition to the awarding of these honors, your evaluations of student presentations serve to help our students learn the art of successfully and succinctly conveying information to an audience of their peers.

I look forward to seeing all of you at the Divisional Business Meeting.




Libbie H. Hyman Memorial Scholarship

We continue to make the effort to expand the Libbie H. Hyman Memorial Scholarship Fund toward the goal of awarding two scholarships each year, one to an undergraduate and one to a graduate student. A field station experience can help shape a student's career.

In the last round of awards we were able to award a scholarship to Roger Redondo, a land-locked, first-year graduate student in the Biology Department at the University of Central Arkansas. Roger used this scholarship to travel to Friday Harbor Laboratories to study how activity of the Pedal cell 3 (Pd3) motor neuron affected the ability of the marine nudibranch Tritonia diomedea to turn and to orient to flow.

Contributions, large or small may be sent to: SICB Business Office, Libbie H. Hyman Memorial Scholarship Fund, 1313 Dolley Madison Blvd., Suite 402, McLean, VA 22101. Checks should be made payable to SICB and marked as a "Contribution to the Libbie H. Hyman Memorial Scholarship Fund." All contributions are tax deductible. This scholarship, in memory of Libbie H. Hyman, one of America's foremost invertebrate zoologists, provides assistance to students to take courses OR to research on invertebrates at a marine, freshwater or terrestrial field station. The Hyman is intended to help support a first field station experience for a first- or second-year graduate student or an advanced undergraduate student.

Completed applications, which must be submitted on-line, must include:
  • A one to two page description of the proposed coursework or research
  • Two (2) letters of recommendation from faculty members
  • Transcripts of both undergraduate and (if applicable) graduate course work.
Deadline: MARCH 3, 2003
Notification of Awards: APRIL 3, 2003.


Application forms and further information are available on the web at:

http://sicb.org/grants/hyman/

For more information contact:

Dr. Amy S. Johnson
Chair, SICB Libbie Hyman Scholarship Committee
Biology Department
Bowdoin College
6500 College Station
Brunswick, ME 04011
FAX: 207-725-3405
Email: ajohnson@bowdoin.edu




Message from the Graduate Student-Postdoctoral Affairs Committee Representative

Ben Miner

Hello fellow students. The Toronto meeting is quickly approaching, and I would like to remind student members that the due date for meeting registration is Dec 10. When registering, don't forget to indicate that you are a member of the Division of Invertebrate Zoology (DIZ).

In addition, there are several interesting student/postdoc events you should be aware of. The student "first timer" orientation will be held on Sunday, January 5, from 11:30 AM-12:50 PM, the student/postdoc workshop will be held on Tuesday, January 7, 6:15-7:30 PM, and the SICB Society-wide evening social in honor of students and postdocs will be held on January 7, from 7:30 - 9:30 PM. Graduate Students and Post-docs are also invited to the Division meeting on Sunday, January 5, 5:15-6:15 pm and the joint AMS/DIZ/DEE social scheduled from 6:30 pm to 8 pm on Monday night. These events provide an excellent opportunity to gain skills and interact with other students and fellow invertebrate zoologists. I hope to see you all in January, and don't forget to bring warm clothes.
If you have any suggestions, please email them to me at miner@zoo.ufl.edu. Good luck with your studies and research!




Link to officer list on DIZ page