Laura Huenneke, an ecologist and conservation scientist who has also served in university and nonprofit leadership positions, became President of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) during the Society’s annual meeting in New Orleans, LA. Elected by the members of ESA for a one-year term, Huenneke presides over the world’s largest professional society of ecologists.
The ESA Governing Board announced today that Dr. Catherine O’Riordan, interim co-CEO and chief operating officer of the American Institute of Physics (AIP), will join the Society’s staff as its new executive director on April 16. O’Riordan, an ocean scientist and highly accomplished association executive, will be only the third executive director in ESA’s 100+ year history.
The ecological community gathers each year for the ESA Annual Meeting. The heart of our society is its members and the free exchange of scientific ideas. Thus, the theme for the 2017 photo contest was “Exchanging Ecological Ideas”.
The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is pleased to announce its 2017 Fellows. The Society’s fellowship program recognizes the many ways in which its members contribute to ecological research and discovery, communication, education and pedagogy, and management and policy. Fellows are members who have made outstanding contributions to a wide range of fields served by ESA, including, but not restricted…
David Lodge, Director of the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, Cornell University, became President of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) on August 12, 2016. As President, Lodge now chairs ESA’s governing board, which establishes the Society’s vision, goals and objectives. “The need is greater than ever for rigorous scientific information about the dependence of humans on nature, and…
ESA joined 56 of America’s leading nonpartisan organizations in posing 20 questions on current science issues to the Presidential candidates.
Honorary Membership is given to a distinguished ecologist who has made exceptional contributions to ecology and whose principal residence and site of ecological research are outside of North America. Richard Hobbs, a professor of restoration ecology at the University of Western Australia, is an innovative, collaborative scientist with proven capacity to bridge the fields of basic and applied ecology. He…
The Shreve award supplies $1,000-2,000 to support ecological research by graduate or undergraduate student members of ESA in the hot deserts of North America (Sonora, Mohave, Chihuahua, and Vizcaino). Nameer Baker, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Irvine, works on the effects of climate on microbial decomposition and carbon cycling in desert systems. Camila Medeiros, who is…
The Robert H. Whittaker Award recognizes an outstanding ecologist in a developing country who does not currently reside in the United States and is not a U.S. citizen. Whittaker, a prolific plant community ecologist, is most widely known his five-kingdom taxonomic classification system for living things, which drew from his early, influential work on trophic levels, environmental gradients and community classification…
ESA presents the Murray F. Buell and E. Lucy Braun Awards for an outstanding research talk and poster presented by students at the Annual Meeting. Panel members at the Centennial Annual Meeting of the ESA in Baltimore, Md. (August 2015) honored Cody S. Clements, a graduate student in the School of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Ga.,…
ESA’s Commitment to Human Diversity Award recognizes long-standing contributions of an individual towards increasing the diversity of future ecologists through mentoring, teaching, or outreach. Frank Day, a professor of ecology and eminent scholar at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. is known for mentoring many graduate and undergraduate students as well as his stellar career as a wetland scientist. For…
Innovation in Sustainability Science Award honors Ariana E. Sutton-Grier, Kateryna Wowk, and Holly A. Bamford. The Innovation in Sustainability Science Award recognizes the authors of a peer-reviewed paper published in the past five years exemplifying leading-edge work on solution pathways to sustainability challenges. In the United States, Hurricane Sandy brought unprecedented attention to building resilience of coastal communities and ecosystems to…
The Sustainability Science Award recognizes the authors of the scholarly work that makes the greatest contribution to the emerging science of ecosystem and regional sustainability through the integration of ecological and social sciences. Ecologist Margaret Palmer and legal scholar J.B. Ruhl tackle a critical issue in sustainability science: how the application of ecological science can be translated into effective policy that…
Eugene P. Odum Award recipients demonstrate their ability to relate basic ecological principles to human affairs through teaching, outreach, and mentoring activities. Bob Pohlad and Carolyn Thomas have been a passionate and committed team of educators in the field of ecology for almost four decades. While the work of either alone would be worthy of recognition with the Odum Award, this…
The W.S. Cooper Award honors the authors of an outstanding publication in the field of geobotany, physiographic ecology, plant succession or the distribution of plants along environmental gradients. Etienne Laliberté, Graham Zemunik, and Benjamin L. Turner (2014) Environmental filtering explains variation in plant diversity along resource gradients. Science 345: 1602–1605. DOI: 10.1126/science.1256330 William S. Cooper was a pioneer of physiographic ecology…
The George Mercer Award recognizes an outstanding and recently-published ecological research paper by young scientists. Jennifer R. Gremer and D. Lawrence Venable (2014) Bet hedging in desert winter annual plants: optimal germination strategies in a variable environment. Ecology Letters 17: 380–387. DOI: 10.1111/ele.12241 Unpredictable fluctuation in environmental conditions is a ubiquitous challenge for all forms of life. “Bet-hedging” names a strategy…
The Distinguished Service Citation recognizes long and distinguished volunteer service to the Ecological Society of America, the scientific community, and the larger purpose of ecology in the public welfare. Carol Brewer, a professor emeritus at the University of Montana, has a long and distinguished record of service to the society and to the broader science community, especially through her efforts in…
The MacArthur Award, presented by the Ecological Society of America in alternate years, recognizes the contributions of an outstanding ecologist in mid-career. Anurag Agrawal of Cornell University has shown consistent leadership in opening up new research themes in ecology and continues to push the envelope with novel approaches to science, teaching, and community building. Like Robert H. MacArthur, Dr. Agrawal…
ESA honors Jerry Franklin, professor of ecosystem analysis in the College of Forest Resources at the University of Washington in Seattle, with the 2016 Eminent Ecologist Award. The Eminent Ecologist Award honors a senior ecologist for an outstanding body of ecological work or sustained ecological contributions of extraordinary merit. Jerry Franklin is renowned in the field of ecology for applying forestry research…
Ecologist Karen K. Lips wants to protect wild salamanders from exposure to a deadly new fungal infection spreading through the pet trade.