{"id":21076,"date":"2025-08-05T16:50:42","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T16:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=21076"},"modified":"2025-08-05T23:39:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T23:39:24","slug":"esas-2024-year-in-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2025\/08\/05\/esas-2024-year-in-review\/","title":{"rendered":"ESA’s 2024 Year in Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This letter to our members is by Past President Shahid Naeem<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
ESA Past President Shahid Naeem<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s my honor as 2024 ESA President to write a letter to the members, to sum up our accomplishments and introduce the full annual report. Since we realistically have to wait until the year is over to work on that, we typically don\u2019t start until late in the winter and hope we can deliver it in spring. But as you can imagine, things in our world became rather tumultuous at that time, and it felt like an all-out sprint just to keep up with developments in the political realm, so we\u2019re later than usual in pulling this report together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this isn\u2019t normal, is it? Many of the things that really define us as a Society, and as scientists, are under direct threat. Talking about good things we\u2019ve done without putting that into the right context feels empty. So let\u2019s celebrate our successes, and put particular focus on those things that some are trying to take away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ecologists From Local to Global<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been an active member of ESA for 41 years. Yes, that makes sense, I\u2019m an ecology professor, but the thing that always appeals to me is really the people. It\u2019s that opportunity to meet and understand other ecologists from across the country and around the world, and increasingly from communities in the United States that traditionally hadn\u2019t been well-represented in the sciences. I\u2019m proud to say that, while we didn\u2019t have one of our most numerically significant years during my presidential tenure, we did manage to continue to develop our community:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • We continued our trend of building more gender equity in ESA, with self-identified men now only constituting 49% of the membership, while women and non-binary members make up 46%.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Total minority participation in ESA increased to 32%, as self-reported by members; since 2020, Asian membership has grown by about 20%, Hispanic membership by a little over 25%, and Black membership by more than 50%. We also have all-time high participation by Native Americans since our TEK Section took the lead in engaging with Indigenous scholars and practitioners in 2022.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    We continued to bring new areas of scientific research and practice into the Society as well, as we welcomed the Climate Adaptation<\/strong> and Coastal and Marine Ecology Sections<\/strong>, both of which made immediate impacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Serving Our Community<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    As the world\u2019s largest community of ecologists, we also host the world\u2019s largest gatherings of ecologists: more than 3,000 colleagues joined us in Long Beach last year. They presented 2,148 abstracts across nearly 300 invited and contributed sessions, plus posters, many of which were included thanks to $60,000 in registration and dependent care support, plus thousands more administered by the sections and chapters. We also included 47workshops and short courses, and the largest Career Central program to date. The whole thing was held up by several hundred volunteers, including many students who had their meeting registration reimbursed!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I was pleased to lead the Opening Plenary, welcoming first the new Editor In Chief (EIC) of Earth Stewardship<\/em>, \u00a0Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald, to the stage, and then introduce our opening lecturer, Executive Director Jackie Grant from Grand Staircase Escalante Partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n