Message from DEDB Leadership

Dave Angelini, Chair (Chair.DEDB@sicb.org); Frank Smith, Program Officer (DPO.DEDB@sicb.org); Allison Edgar, Secretary (Secretary.DEDB@sicb.org); Sydney Birch, Student/Postdoc Representative

DEDB needs your help! If you think you might be interested in serving, whether as a divisional officer, judge in the Best Student Presentation competition, or as a mentee to an early-career DEDB member at the annual meeting, please get in touch. Furthermore, we’d love to share your photos from the meeting or news from your lab.

• Contact the DEDB Secretary directly if you would consider running for office, have information you would like shared in future newsletters, or to suggest an early-career researcher for a “spotlight” (Secretary.DEDB@sicb.org).
• Use the society-wide volunteer form and specify your membership in DEDB if you aren’t sure how you would like to serve but are interested in learning more, or email the secretary directly (Secretary.DEDB@sicb.org).
• To join the SICB 2024 meeting meetups as a  DEDB mentor or mentee (or both!), sign up with this webform: https://forms.gle/s8BQRBLYHPftaZmM6
• To volunteer to serve as a judge in the DEDB Best Student Presentation competition, please respond via this form: https://forms.gle/PLxNkXfBtQVgaFtaA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please follow DEDB on our old and new social media handles, and make sure to share your news with us!:

• Mastodon: @SICB_DEDB (https://mastodon.social/@SICB_DEDB)
• Bluesky: @sicb-dedb (https://bsky.app/profile/sicb-dedb.bsky.social)
• Instagram: @sicb_dedb (https://www.instagram.com/sicb_dedb/)
• X, the app formerly known as Twitter: @SICB_DEDB (https://twitter.com/SICB_DEDB)

Our next upcoming election (Spring 2024) will be for a new Chair-Elect, as Dave Angelini steps into the role of Past Chair and Prashant Sharma becomes Chair. Interested candidates are highly encouraged to contact the Secretary directly at Secretary.DEDB@sicb.org

SICB 2024 Meeting Information

With SICB 2024 right around the corner, we’re looking forward to seeing many members of the division in person in Seattle! 

We expect an excellent meeting for DEDB! There are 95 presentations from DEDB members for the annual meeting in Seattle, up from 75 in 2023, and three symposia sponsored or co-sponsored by DEDB: 

1) Chordate origins, evolution and development
2) Convergent evolution across levels of biological organization, organisms, and time
3) What do trade-offs mean to reproducing females?: An integrative look at whole-organism trade-offs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also have a very exciting lineup of eight speakers in our Best Student Presentation talk competition. The BSP talk competition will take place on Wednesday, January 3, 1:30–3:30 PM. 

There will be an additional eight sessions directly related to evo-devo at the annual meeting: 

1) Arthropod Evo-Devo
2) Reproduction and Development
3) Post-Embryonic Development and Regeneration
4) Spiralian Development
5) Morphogenesis and Organogenesis
6) Vertebrate Morphogenesis and Evolution
7) Development and Plasticity
8) Development and Evolution

Be sure to check the schedule so that you don’t miss these exciting sessions. Lastly, we have 32 poster presentations, several of which will be competing for the Best Student Presentation Poster Award.     

This year DEDB will be teaming up with the Division of Vertebrate Morphology and the Division of Comparative Biomechanics for our Divisional Social on Wednesday, January 3. The Social will take place in the evening. We have reserved a beautiful, spacious atrium for this event. Don’t miss out on the fun! 

DEDB’s Member Meeting will be held from 5:45–6:45 PM, also on Wednesday, January 3. We will be discussing important topics, such as amendments and revisions to our bylaws and the possibility of creating a social media manager position. We hope to see you there. 

SPDAC Representative

Sydney Birch (sbirch1@charlotte.edu)

Greetings DEDB students and postdocs! 

 I am excited to serve as your new DEDB Student/Postdoctoral Affairs Committee Representative. To introduce myself, I am currently in my second year of my postdoc at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte in the Reitzel Lab. I am interested in evolutionary ecology of Cnidarians where in my PhD I studied sensory ecology in hydrozoans and larval settlement and now in my postdoc, I am studying microbial and viral associations with sea anemones. I am very excited to get to know you all, hear about your research interests, and figure out how to best represent and support you.

 I would like to thank the previous representative, Ryan Hulett, for all of his hard work, especially with organizing the Evo-Devo dinner and coffee meet-ups. These have been instrumental in helping trainees build solid networks and broadening their research interests.

I hope you all are looking forward to attending an amazing meeting in Seattle and the Evo-Devo dinner and coffee meet-ups. I plan to carry on the tradition of organizing this and welcome any feedback so that we can make it even better. Look out for an email from me in the next few weeks regarding this as well as opportunities to support your meeting and travel costs.

 Feel free to contact me if you have any comments, questions, suggestions or if you would like to get more involved in DEDB.

 

Welcoming our Officers-Elect for 2024-2025

Two Officers-Elect Program Officer-Elect, Dave Plachetski and Secretary-Elect, Heather Bruce. will begin their terms after the 2024 meeting. Thanks to them and to all candidates who offered to serve!