Division of Comparative Physiology & Biochemistry (DCPB): 2007 Fall Newsletter
In this newsletter:
Message
from the Chair
Patrick J. Walsh
I
trust you all have had an enjoyable summer. I certainly did, just the
right blend of science (including four weeks at the Bamfield Marine
Sciences Centre) and down-time. By now you are all well into the
routine of the academic year, so I will keep my comments brief.
SICB
Annual Meeting, San Antonio, 2008 (and beyond)
We
have a great lineup of symposia (see Don Mykles' comments below)
and contributed talks, and San Antonio is a pretty cool venue. I hope
to see many of you there! Also, please note Don's request for
additional symposia for the outyears.
Judging
of Student Papers
The
Division of Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry honors its
student presenters with Best Student Paper Awards (one each for best
oral presentation and best poster) at each year's annual meeting.
(This year the awards will be named to honor Robert Terwilliger.)
This program works because of the dedication and support of the
members -- particularly when it comes to serving as judges. Last year
in Phoenix, we had OVER 70 entrants. This represented a
significant increase (about 10%) over the number of entrants we
evaluated in Orlando. This trend has held for about five years now,
and all indications are that this trend will continue. In short: we
need you to serve as a judge, this year more than ever.
What
do you have to do?
Attend
the presentations to which you are assigned and evaluate the students
according to the rubric provided. Ask questions. Be interested.
Return evaluations to me after the meeting. Ideally, we will have a
brief meeting to discuss the best papers on the last day in San
Antonio.
What
are the benefits?
Meeting
our student members, encouraging them in their research, recognizing
their efforts, making them feel more a part of SICB and DCPB, and
potentially assuring their future participation in DCPB and the
Society. The students receive a monetary award and the pride of
knowing that their work is appreciated by their broader professional
community. Who
may serve?
In
brief, YOU! If you are a full or postdoctoral member of DCPB we can
find a place to use you, as long as you don't have students entered
in BOTH the oral and poster competitions. If you have students in one
or the other (but not both), you can still judge. (It is better if
postdoctoral judges are not also entrants in the competition.) If
you can help, please respond directly to Dave Tapley
at dtapley@salemstate.edu
Elections
Past and Future
Please
give Allen Gibbs a warm welcome as our incoming secretary (and a
thank you to Steve Secor for standing for election). Allen will
replace Jonathon Stillman at the end of the San Antonio meeting. As
you know, in last year's election, Joe Williams got the nod as
incoming Chair, so he has been in the loop as Chair-Elect for the
past year. He will replace me as Chair at the close of the 2008
meeting. A nominating committee will be present at the San Antonio
meeting, so it is not too early to be thinking about the next
election in the Spring in which a Program Officer and a Chair-Elect
will be selected to start service in January 2009. Let me know your
suggestions for nominees and I will put you in touch with the
nominating committee.
Bartholomew
Award Winner!
I
am pleased to announce that Dr. Sheila Patek of the University of
California Berkeley was chosen by the Bartholomew Award Committee
(Drs. Burnett, Gilmour (Chair), Gordon, Riddiford, Wainwright, and
Huey, ex officio) to be the 2008 Bartholomew Awardee "for
distinguished contributions to comparative physiology and
biochemistry, and to related fields of functional and integrative
biology" for her research on the
evolution of sensory and mechanical systems in marine invertebrates.
Congrats to Dr. Patek and my thanks to the committee members. While
program details are still being worked out at press time, if past
years are indicative of the upcoming schedule, the lecture and
reception should be the evening of Jan 3, just after our DCPB
business meeting. Please check the program for details and plan on
attending! Sponsors of the award will again be Sable Systems, so be
sure to drop by their booth in San Antonio and give them a hearty 'thank
you'.
Membership
As
part of an email/database glitch, last year many long-term members of
DCPB did not get recorded as DCPB members. I hope that by now most of
you will have renewed your SICB membership and DCPB affiliation to
rectify this issue. We've also noted a phenomenon in the membership
database, namely, that a small subset of members renew only in the
year in which they attend a meeting (presumably so they qualify for
the member's meeting registration rate). We need you to be a SICB
member year in and year out. If you have not yet done so,
please renew! The society can be best maintained by a strong, active
and continuous membership.
Message
from the Program Officer
Don Mykles
Upcoming
SICB meetings
San
Antonio 2008. Our next meeting is at the San Antonio Marriott
Rivercenter Hotel, January 2-6, 2008. The Henry B. Gonzalez
Convention Center, just a short walk from the hotel, will be an
excellent venue for symposia and contributed papers and posters
(http://www.sanantonio.gov/convfac/HBGCC/hbgoverview.asp). The area
immediately around the hotel, which includes the River Walk, has an
abundance of restaurants. You can take the airport shuttle (SATRANS;
210-281-9900) to downtown hotels; tickets are purchased ($14 one way)
at kiosks immediately outside the baggage claim areas at Terminals 1
and 2 (http://www.sanantonio.gov/aviation/).
For visitor information, maps, and guides, go to:
http://www.sanantoniovisit.com/visitors/com_history.asp.
The
program is varied and interesting. Over a thousand abstracts were
submitted. The division received 149 abstracts, which were
distributed between 67 oral and 82 poster presentations. There are
poster sessions on Jan. 3, 4, & 5. There will be 10-11 concurrent
platform sessions, including symposia. DCPB is cosponsoring the
symposium "Evolution vs. Creationism in the Classroom: Evolving
Student Attitudes", organized by E. Lovely and the
late-breaking symposium "Recent Advances in Crustacean Genomics:
A Two-Year Progress Report," organized by J. Stillman. DCPB is
hosting the reception following the Bart Lecture on Thursday, Jan.
3rd.
Boston
2009. The meeting is January 2-6, 2009 at the Westin Waterfront
Hotel
(http://www.starwoodhotels.com/westin/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=1528).
DCPB
is sponsoring a society-wide symposium on Insect Evolution,
organized by T. Bradley and A. Briscoe, and a regular symposium on
Biomaterials: Properties, Variation, and Evolution, organized
by B. Swanson and A. Summers. More details about the venue and
program will be provided in the spring 2008 newsletter.
The
program committee will consider proposals for late-breaking symposia
for the Boston meeting. Information on this will be announced later.
Remember, it's never too early to develop symposia for the 2010
meeting! Please feel free to discuss your ideas with me in San
Antonio.
Other
upcoming meetings of interest
Consult
The American Physiological Society web site for a list of other
meetings: http://www.the-aps.org/meetings/related/index.htm
Message from the ICCPB & IUPS Representative
Lou Burnett
The
seventh International Congress of Comparative Physiology and
Biochemistry (ICCPB) took place in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil on August
12 through 16. By all counts, the meeting was a success with over
300 registered delegates attending 5 plenary lectures and 40 symposia
with accompanying oral and poster presentations. The meeting
headquarters was located in the beautiful Pestana Bahia Hotel located
directly on the Atlantic Ocean where one could enjoy a breakfast
watching waves crash onto the rocks at the base of the hotel (see
image). SICB delegates made a strong showing, participating in
numerous symposia. SICB member Nora Terwilliger presented one of the
plenary lectures.
This
international congress has occurred every four years since 1984 and
has been the premier international meeting for comparative
physiologists and biochemists. The next meeting will occur on June
1-5, 2011 in Nagoya, Japan. SICB members should be thinking now
about symposia for this meeting. Contact members of your DCPB
Executive Committee if you have ideas for the program. Mark your
calendars for June 2011!
Message from the Secretary
Jonathon H. Stillman
Those
of you who regularly view the SICB website have undoubtedly noticed
that SICB now has a new website - one that is greatly improved.
Many thanks to the SICB webmaster Ruedi Birenheide and SICB Secretary
Lou Burnett for their efforts!
One
of the new features is our "Researchers Database" which is
basically a collection of images portraying research of SICB members
and short descriptions to accompany the images. The researchers
database is a great way for community exposure, both within and
outside of the SICB. Plus, this is a pretty unique feature among
large scientific societies, and with the integrative nature of our
research (i.e., cool organisms to look at) our members have an
abundance of interesting images. Every member of SICB can be listed
in the Researchers Database, (yes YOU)! If you are not yet listed,
please send a photo and accompanying text to the DCPB Secretary and
your submission will be added to the website.
Another
new feature of the website is that there are many more images
integrated on the website, both on the home page as well as in
newsletters. Please take pictures at the SICB meeting
and send them to the DCPB secretary so that they can be incorporated
into the newsletter.
Finally,
it has been an honor to serve the DCPB as secretary the past two
years, and I will do what I can to ensure a smooth transition to your
next Secretary, Allen Gibbs at the 2008 DCPB business meeting.
Congrats Allen!
Message
from the Graduate Student/Postdoc Representative
Joanna Joyner Matos
Hello
DCPB graduate students and postdocs!
The
Student/ Postdoctoral Affairs Committee (SPDAC) has planned several
activities during the San Antonio meeting. I hope you will attend:
The Grad Student/Postdoc Welcome and
Meeting Orientation on Wednesday evening at 5:30 p.m. is entitled,
"How to get the most out of your SICB meeting." We will
discuss topics ranging from how to find relevant talks/posters,
enter or leave a room, and approach a "leader in the field" at
the meeting.
Saturday evening (6:00-7:00 p.m.) we
are hosting a workshop entitled, "I Have a Great Idea, But Who
Will Fund Me: How to Write a Grant."
Saturday evening concludes with a
society-wide social for students and postdocs from 8:00-9:30 p.m.
I
want to encourage female doctoral students and postdocs to consider
applying for the Dorothy M. Skinner Scholarship, which
contributes to travel costs to the SICB annual meeting for presenting
authors. I also encourage all students who are presenting authors to
apply for the Charlotte Mangum Student Support Program, which
provides registration or housing costs in exchange for one half-day
of volunteer work during the annual meeting. The applications for
both of these funding opportunities are on-line.
On
a separate topic, the DCPB officers have decided to alter the method
for selecting the graduate student/postdoc representative. In
previous years, the division Chair has selected the representative.
We would like to alter this process in an effort to give DCPB student
members more involvement in the selection of their representative.
To that end, we are soliciting nominations (feel free to
self-nominate) for a two-year term as the DCPB student
representative. A description of the duties is listed below. Thje
divisional student representative also serves on the Student/Postdoc
Affairs Committee, which oversees several activities during each
annual meeting.
Nominations
are due December 1, 2007. With the nomination please include a brief
statement of SICB activities, research interests, and your goals as
the DCPB student representative.
I
strongly encourage you to apply for this position. I have benefited
greatly from learning how an organization is managed, interacting
with the DCPB officers, and contributing to SPDAC activities.
If
you have questions, please feel free to contact me at
jjmatos@ufl.edu.
Good luck with the semester!
Duties of the DCPB Graduate
Student/Postdoctoral Representative:
- You are an assistant to the DCPB
chair and should make yourself available for any help the Chair may
need, particularly at the Annual Meeting.
- You normally become a member of
SICB's Student/ Postdoctoral Affairs Committee (SPDAC), a
society-wide committee. The SPDAC is chaired by a full member of SICB
and has graduate student or post doc representatives from each of the
SICB divisions. The chair of SPDAC is a member of the SICB Executive
Committee. SPDAC is responsible for planning student-oriented
activities at the Annual Meeting. SPDAC also is intended to serve as
a liaison between SICB's student members and SICB's Executive
Committee. You should attend SPDAC meetings as well as DCPB business
meetings at the Annual Meeting.
- In your role as DCPB student
representative, you should try to get to know the DCPB student
members (this is the really fun part-now you have an excuse to walk
up and introduce yourself to people!). Hopefully the DCPB students
will approach you with questions or concerns about the Society or the
meeting.
- You submit a paragraph or two for
the DCPB newsletters twice per year, including information of student
activities at upcoming meetings, reviews of student participation at
meetings, and notices about grant opportunities.
- Some good places to look for
grants that interest DCPB students:
SICB - Grants in Aid of Research and
Fellowship for Graduate Student Travel. www.sicb.org
Sigma Xi - Grant in Aid of Research
(2 applications/year). www.sigmaxi.org
National Science Foundation -
Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant. www.nsf.gov
Environmental Protection Agency -
STAR Fellowships and others. http://es.epa.gov/ncer/fellow/
General search for
government-sponsored grants, may have student grants. www.grants.gov
Link to officer list on DCPB page
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