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Public Affairs — Page 6

Action Alert: Urge Congress to Support Research Relief

Join ESA and 22 other professional societies representing hundreds of thousands of scientists, mathematicians and engineers as part of a collaborative effort to raise awareness of the importance of restoring our academic research enterprise impacted by COVID-19. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), the impacts on the federal enterprise are far-reaching, resulting in lab and user facility closures, canceled…

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View from Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument - Pilot Rock. Credit: Bob Wick/BLM CC BY 2.0

ESA as a channel of communication between its members and NSF

by Osvaldo Sala, ESA President One of the central roles of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) is to represent its members in front of different bodies at the national and international levels. While single voices face difficulties in reaching target audiences, communications are enhanced when articulated through a professional society. ESA plays the double role of not only communicating…

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Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice Blog Series #1: The ESA-SEEDS Campus Chapter Program: Engaging the Next Generation of Diverse Environmental Leaders

In honor of Kendra Chan by Jasjeet Dhanota, SEEDS Co-President with Kendra Chan, UC Davis (2014–2015)   The Ecological Society of America’s SEEDS program (Strategies for Ecology Education, Diversity and Sustainability) is proud to announce a major gift from Ms. Vicki Moore in honor of her daughter, Kendra Chan, to support SEEDS Campus Ecology Chapters, which are active on over…

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ESA moving forward and going virtual

by Osvaldo Sala, President, and Catherine O’Riordan, Executive Director One of the strengths of the ESA organization is the ability to adapt to challenges in our programs and in our science. Like most other organizations responding to the pandemic, ESA moved to virtual operations in March and the DC office is temporarily closed. Staff continues to work from home while…

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Ecology and COVID #4: Leveraging the liabilities of virtual collaboration

by Benjamin S. Halpern1,2, Julien Brun1, Amber Budden1, Marty Downs1, Carrie V. Kappel1, and Julia S. Stewart Lowndes1 1National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 2Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA When the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) started shutting down its research labs on March…

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Letter to the community

Dear ecological community, We reach out to you today in sadness and solidarity. Recent acts of violence against the Black community as seen in the horrific killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, have sparked protests across the United States. They underscore the long history of racism and discrimination in our country. Racism and prejudice continue to harm…

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Ecology and COVID #3: Can Technology Fill the Coronavirus Data Gap?

by National Ecological Observatory Network When humans can’t get to the field for ecological research, could the robots take over? When humans can’t get to the field for ecological research, could the robots take over? COVID-19 has limited the ability of ecologists to get to the field to collect samples and check instruments in many parts of the world. While…

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ESA 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting

Dear ESA Member, ESA will be holding a totally virtual Annual Meeting this year from August 3–6 in response to the pandemic. The virtual meeting will provide an opportunity for you to join colleagues and leaders from across the field for four days of inspiration and community focused on your research and your career as each of us looks ahead…

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Coronavirus

Ecology and COVID #2: Evolutionary Biology and Questions Regarding the Coronavirus

by Jorge V. Crisci (Universidad Nacional de la La Plata, Argentina) and Tod F. Stuessy (Ohio State University, USA) The great German physicist Werner Heisenberg remarked that nature does not reveal itself directly but only through questions we ask about it. This is true for questions we have with the tragic pandemic of COVID-19. In the last 17 years, coronaviruses,…

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View from Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument - Pilot Rock. Credit: Bob Wick/BLM CC BY 2.0

ESA conversation with the NSF BIO Assistant Director

Blog post by ESA President Osvaldo Sala On April 9, I represented ESA in a meeting with Joanne Tornow, NSF assistant director for the NSF Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO). Tornow organized the Zoom meeting to listen to concerns of scientific society leaders and to inform us of NSF’s COVID-19 pandemic response. The other attendees were presidents and CEOs of…

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