LATEST NEWS

Congratulations to the recipient of the 2024 IDEA Award, Dr. Jeremy Yoder! 

The Inclusiveness, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Award is presented by the American Society of Naturalists, the Society for the Study of Evolution and the Society of Systematic Biologists. Dr. Yoder was selected for his foundational work recognizing, celebrating, and promoting the inclusion of LGBTQ+ professionals in STEM fields. In 2013, he spearheaded a large-scale study with the nonprofit Out to Innovate to survey more than 1,400 LGBTQA researchers around the world about their experiences in STEM fields. This work produced three papers which together have been cited almost 300 times, have inspired new projects and research, and are used as educational resources. Yoder has presented seminars on inclusion on LGBTQ inclusion and experiences in STEM, and served on panels to review policies for the advancement of LGBTQ+ people in STEM careers. In 2024, he spoke about his career studying Joshua trees in the Story Collider event at the annual Evolution meeting, where he previously helped organize LGBTQ+ meetups and mixers for several years. Learn more about his work on his lab website.

Dr. Yoder will present his work during the IDEA Award Plenary at the in-person portion of the Evolution 2025 meeting in Athens, GA in June.

The SSE Education and Outreach Committee is now accepting proposals for the Small Grants Program for Local and Regional Outreach Promoting the Understanding of Evolutionary Biology. 

These grants provide support for local and regional educational outreach activities to take place during 2025. Examples of past outreach activities have included public lectures, exhibits, student competitions, and professional development events for teachers.

Grants of up to $1000 USD will be awarded. Applicants must be members of SSE. 

Learn more and apply by  March 1, 2025. 

Applications are now open for the 2025 International Travel Stipends, which provide funding to attend the Evolution 2025 meeting or the ESEB 2025 Congress in person. Recipients receive meeting registration and funds for transportation to the conference, meals, and lodging. All career stages are eligible, and preference will be given to students and early-career researchers. 

Check your eligibility and apply by January 31.

The SSE International Committee is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2024 International Event Grants! The goal of these grants is to foster communication and collaboration between scientists from different countries by sponsoring international symposia, workshops, courses, and other events within the field of evolutionary biology. 

2024 Recipients:

Event: Meeting on the Origins and Evolution of Multicellularity Across the Tree of Life

Organizers: Victoria Shabardina (Institute of Evolutionary Biology, Barcelona, Spain —IBE, CSIC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain), Marta Álvarez-Presas (IBE), Koryu Kin (Juntendo University, Japan), Guifré Torruella (IBE), Aurora Nedelcu (University of New Brunswick, Canada), Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo (IBE)
Dates: October 9-11, 2025
Location: Barcelona, Spain


Event: Evolutionary Genomics Workshop – Colombia 2024

Organizers: Catalina Palacios (SELVA: Research for the conservation in the neotropics, Colombia), Daniel Cadena (Universidad de los Andes, Colombia), Camila Gómez (SELVA: Research for the conservation in the neotropics, Colombia), Leonardo Campagna (Cornell University, USA)
Dates: Late 2024 (exact dates TBD)
Location: Bogotá, Santa Marta, and Chiquinquirá, Colombia


Event: RADcamp-Latin America 2025: Robust and reproducible library preparation, sequencing, assembly, and analysis of RADseq datasets

Organizers: RADCamp workshop team (USA) and CoreLab Genomics team (Tecnológico de Monterrey, México)
Dates: July 14-21, 2025
Location: Monterrey, México


Event: Fifth International Southeast Asian Bat Conference (SEABCO 2024)

Organizers: Long Vu (Center for Biodiversity Conservation and Endangered Species—CBES) and Laurel Yohe (UNC Charlotte, USA)
Dates: November 26-30, 2024
Location: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Applications are now open for the Graduate Research Excellence Grants (GREG) - R. C. Lewontin Early Awards, which provide up to $2,500 USD in research funds for students in the early stages of their PhD or Master’s programs. Applicants must be members of SSE. Full eligibility requirements, evaluation criteria, and proposal instructions are available here. 

Deadline: February 19

The SSE Diversity Committee is seeking new members for 2025! The DC works to support members from all backgrounds through 1) broadening representation to the SSE Executive Council, 2) pursuing initiatives that support historically excluded groups, and 3) creating an inclusive, accessible environment at the annual Evolution meeting and in evolutionary biology in general. 

Learn more and submit your application by December 15. 

The SSE Education and Outreach Committee is pleased to announce the call for applications for the 2025 T. H. Huxley award, named in honor of Darwin's very public supporter, which recognizes and promotes the development of high-quality evolution education resources. If you have an interesting project or educational activity to share, consider applying for this award. Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows are encouraged to apply. 

This award provides funding for an SSE member to present evolution education resources at an education-focused session or conference approved by the Huxley Committee (e.g., education session at the annual Evolution meeting or the annual National Association of Biology Teachers conference).

Applications are due February 3, 2025. Learn more and apply here.

Have you had part of your dissertation published in Evolution or Evolution Letters this year? Consider submitting it for the SSE President’s Award for Outstanding Dissertation Paper. Previously only for papers in Evolution, this award now may also recognize papers published in Evolution Letters. 

Learn more and submit your nomination by January 31.

SSE is now accepting nominations for the Dobzhansky Prize to recognize the accomplishments and future promise of an outstanding early-career evolutionary biologist. 

We seek nominees working in all areas of evolutionary biology, on any taxonomic group/system, using empirical and/or theoretical approaches. We hope the pool of nominees will reflect the many axes and components of diversity in the evolutionary biology community. We are specifically looking for candidates who take creative approaches to answering pressing questions in evolutionary biology. We welcome nominations of researchers around the globe.

The Dobzhansky Prize recipient presents the Dobzhansky Prize plenary at the annual Evolution meeting. The prize is accompanied by a 5,000 USD award. 

Submit your nomination by December 1, 2024. 

The 2025 Evolution meeting, the joint meeting of the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), the American Society of Naturalists, and the Society of Systematic Biologists, will be held in two parts: a virtual portion on May 29-30, and an in-person portion on June 20-24 in Athens, GA, USA. 

SSE Council invites proposals for two sponsored symposia at the in-person meeting, and one at the virtual meeting. Symposia should highlight new topics, provide new perspectives, and/or generate new syntheses. Each in-person symposium will consist of two 75 minute sessions separated by a coffee break; the virtual symposium schedule will likely be the same or very similar. Applicants have the option to indicate whether they are willing to host their symposium in-person only, virtual only, or either.

SSE Council seriously considers the diversity of participants as a criterion for symposium funding. Symposium organizers are expected to take into account gender, seniority, nationality, and other axes of diversity traditionally underrepresented in Society symposia, and to describe their efforts to do so in the proposal. 

The Society provides travel support for organizers and participants in sponsored in-person symposia, up to $7000 USD per symposium. SSE will accept requests for additional funds for dependent care costs if this would allow a speaker to accept an invitation to speak in a sponsored symposium. For the virtual symposium, costs of speaker and organizer virtual-only registration will be covered, if necessary (those attending the in-person meeting get virtual registration included so do not need an extra virtual-only registration).

Deadline: January 6, 2025. Applicants will be notified by the end of January.

Learn more about how to submit a proposal here.