Building an Inclusive Society – 2022 Annual Report of the ESA

Our work to build a professional organization for all ecologists continued in 2022, buoyed as always by our members’ generosity and willingness to collectively open doors for students and scientists who face institutional and social barriers to participation.

Notably, our community of ecologists utilizing Traditional Ecological Knowledge by working equitably with Indigenous scientists and communities continued to grow. Building on the year-long webinar series organized by the TEK Section, we and partner societies were awarded an NSF LEAPS grant to connect Western ecologists with TEK practitioners; we additionally received a substantial subgrant from the American Indian Science and Engineering Society. This culminated in a two-day workshop with tribal elders, Indigenous scientists and ESA leaders at the 2022 Annual Meeting in Montreal—watch out for the second iteration in Portland!

Additionally, our flagship undergraduate diversity program, SEEDS, was able to swing back into action after a two-year break. Nearly 200 SEEDS students participated in regional and national field trips, and the annual leadership meeting in Arizona. We also added seven new campus chapters to the network, bringing the total of active chapters up to 30!

We hit another important milestone in 2022 by fully funding the SEEDS national field trips in perpetuity. Following previous years’ successful campaigns to meet the goals of the Henry L. Gholz SEEDS National Field Trip Endowment, last year was powered by a highly ambitious match that saw us ultimately clear $253,000 in total contributions from more than 300 donors just to the endowment.

*SEEDS students on a regional field trip to Guanica Dry Forest Site in Puerto Rico*

In further work supporting researchers, our second year of the ESA Excellence in Ecology Scholars welcomed a new cohort of four early/mid-career scholars with financial support for their career growth as researchers and leaders in building DEIJ in STEM spaces.

The first cohort of EEE Scholars at the 2022 Annual Meeting | left to right, Executive Director Catherine O’Riordan; President Dennis Ojima; Adriana L. Romero-Olivares; Theresa Wei Ying Ong; Na’Taki Osborne Jelks; Erika S. Zavaleta; Diversity Committee Chair Carmen Cid

Our work on inclusion and equitable participation continues, for instance by continuing to work through another NSF LEAPS grant to send leaders to events for BIPOC scientists and students like SACNAS and MANRRS. We hope to see our membership and leadership continue to diversify, and barriers to participation come down, so that we really can be the professional home of all ecologists!