{"id":582,"date":"2024-06-10T13:29:20","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T13:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/2023\/?page_id=582"},"modified":"2024-06-12T14:23:54","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T14:23:54","slug":"a-letter-from-executive-director-catherine-oriordan","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/2023\/the-worlds-largest-community-of-ecologists\/a-letter-from-executive-director-catherine-oriordan\/","title":{"rendered":"A Letter from Executive Director Catherine O’Riordan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Catherine O\u2019Riordan speaks at the 2023 Annual Meeting<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Members, it gives me great pleasure to <\/span>deliver this report to you from our incredible year as a Society in 2023. I<\/span>t is an opportunity to provide\u00a0<\/span> a brief overview of what we accomplished together, and how well-positioned we are for the future.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I think the most visible story to tell is one of numbers. We returned to Portland\u2014historically, our most popular destination for the Annual Meeting\u2014and saw an excellent return to in-person event attendance, with well over 4,000 scientists, educators and practitioners <\/strong><\/span>participating<\/span>. A<\/span>ccordingly, as ecologists sought to resume personal connections following the pandemic, membership bounced back over 8,400<\/strong> for the first time in several years. We<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>host<\/span>ed<\/span> some limited virtual and hybrid experiences at the meeting, but noted that enthusiasm <\/span>to connect online <\/span>(including a hybrid plenary) seems to have waned. Much more popular were the first several events in the <\/span>new virtual professional development program<\/span><\/a>, which <\/span>indicated<\/span> that we <\/span>added<\/span> a meaningful benefit for members, but very notably which kinds of content, in which formats, work best for ecologists when taken online.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We were able to fully return several other events and programs to in-person activity as well. The Mid-Atlantic Chapter<\/a> held its first annual meeting since 2019 (University of Delaware), and our flagship undergraduate program, SEEDS<\/a>, was able to hold a full schedule of field trips across the country. I was able to attend their leadership workshop<\/a> at the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies. Being able to directly interact with the next generation of ecologists <\/span>was inspiring and made me optimistic for <\/span>the<\/span> future<\/span> of ecology<\/span>! And so many of you seem to agree<\/a>\u2014following Phil Taylor\u2019s pledge to match up to $100,000 in donations, we were able to fully fund the Henry L. Gholz SEEDS National Field Trip Endowment<\/strong> so that these crucial activities can continue in perpetuity.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year was also a great one for the internal processes of the Society. It was the second <\/span>year of our new governance structure following the <\/span>redesign of our Board, ESA Council and committees. Emilie Graves<\/strong> (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Policy Section) <\/span>served as<\/span> elected Speaker of the Council<\/a>, and was joined by Diogo Provete<\/strong> (Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul<\/span>, Latin America & the Caribbean Chapter) as Speaker-elect. They helped to lead Council\u2014now a representative body for our several dozen sections and chapters<\/span>\u2014through a round of critical feedback on the ESA Visioning Project<\/a> and scoping strategic priorities for ESA <\/span>in prepar<\/span>ation for<\/span> our 2024 Strategic Plan<\/span>. Council also welcomed two new sections to ESA, the Private & Public Sector Ecologists<\/strong>, and Women in (Soil) Ecology<\/strong>, both of which bring better opportunities for under-represented ecologists to engage with us.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On the committee front, we remained extremely busy. We are our members, and it\u2019s through the committees and the dedicated member volunteers <\/span>that serve on<\/span> them that so much of the work of the Society is accomplished. I congratulate all of our committees for a job well done navigating complex waters and making smart recommendations.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It really was a great year for us. I encourage you to read through each section of this report to see for yourself!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Members, it gives me great pleasure to deliver this report to you from our incredible year as a Society in 2023. It is an opportunity to provide\u00a0 a brief overview of what we accomplished together, and how well-positioned we are for the future.\u00a0 I think the most visible story to tell is one of numbers. We returned to Portland\u2014historically, our…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"parent":571,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-582","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/582\/revisions\/654"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}