The Society of Systematic Biologists advances the science of systematic biology in all its aspects of theory, principles, methodology, and practice, for both living and fossil organisms, with emphasis on areas of common interest to all systematic biologists regardless of individual specialization.
Recent News
Welcome Newly Elected SSB Officers and Council Members!
The SSB Council comprises the executive officers, 15 elected councilors, and two graduate student representatives. We are excited to welcome the following newly elected officers and Council members! Thank you so much for your service to the Society.
President-Elect: Jessica Ware
Awards Director: Heath Blackmon
Joint Meeting Committee Representative: Tracy Heath
Graduate Student Representative: Diego Paredes-Burneo
Council Members: Vinita Gowda, Ivalú Cacho, Santiago Claramunt, Matthew Fujita, and Sarah Jacobs
President-Elect: Jessica Ware
Awards Director: Heath Blackmon
Joint Meeting Committee Representative: Tracy Heath
Graduate Student Representative: Diego Paredes-Burneo
Council Members: Vinita Gowda, Ivalú Cacho, Santiago Claramunt, Matthew Fujita, and Sarah Jacobs
Symposium Proposals for the 3rd Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology
The 3rd Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology will be held in Montreal, Canada, July 26-30 2024 and will include ESEB (the European Society for Evolutionary Biology), as well as SSB, the American Society of Naturalists (ASN), and the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE).
Following ESEB's tradition, ~40% of talks will be given as part of symposia. SSB members are strongly encouraged to submit symposium proposals, which are due by September 1st.
Click here to submit a symposium proposal!
Following ESEB's tradition, ~40% of talks will be given as part of symposia. SSB members are strongly encouraged to submit symposium proposals, which are due by September 1st.
Click here to submit a symposium proposal!
The Evolution conference is the joint annual meeting of the American Society of Naturalists, the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the Society of Systematic Biologists. The meeting is one of the premiere opportunities for sharing research on evolutionary biology each year.
Evolution 2023 was held in 2 parts: A 2-day virtual conference with live online talks, symposia, and networking events on June 2-3, followed by a 5-day in-person conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the Albuquerque Convention Center on June 21-25, 2023. The meeting was a great success, and SSB is grateful to the organizers, sponsors, and presenters for all of their efforts!
Congratulations to this year's Ernst Mayr Award winner, Jessie L. Williamson, for her outstanding talk: "Extreme elevational migration spurs cryptic speciation in giant hummingbirds"!
You can also click here, here and here to view many of the other great talks by students competing in the Mayr symposium.
Click here to watch Past President Brian O'Meara's talk: "Telling it like it is: the importance of naming in science".
Click here to watch the inspiring plenary talk by 2022 IDEA Award winners Melanie Duc Bo Massey and Suchinta Arif: "Joy and meaning through inclusive science communication"!
Evolution 2023 was held in 2 parts: A 2-day virtual conference with live online talks, symposia, and networking events on June 2-3, followed by a 5-day in-person conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the Albuquerque Convention Center on June 21-25, 2023. The meeting was a great success, and SSB is grateful to the organizers, sponsors, and presenters for all of their efforts!
Congratulations to this year's Ernst Mayr Award winner, Jessie L. Williamson, for her outstanding talk: "Extreme elevational migration spurs cryptic speciation in giant hummingbirds"!
You can also click here, here and here to view many of the other great talks by students competing in the Mayr symposium.
Click here to watch Past President Brian O'Meara's talk: "Telling it like it is: the importance of naming in science".
Click here to watch the inspiring plenary talk by 2022 IDEA Award winners Melanie Duc Bo Massey and Suchinta Arif: "Joy and meaning through inclusive science communication"!
SSB Announces New Mentorship Program
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SSB is excited to announce a new mentorship program! This program will help create mentorship pairs between junior and senior members of the systematics community. Junior members will receive guidance (e.g., scientific, professional, etc.) from senior members located at different institutions, while senior members will nurture growth in the next generation of systematists. The program will pair graduate students and postdocs (junior members) with more-established members of the systematics community, including faculty, curators, teachers, researchers, etc. (senior members).
The initial cohort will consist of 20 mentoring pairs, and matches between mentees and mentors will be created based on shared interests. The expected duration of these mentoring pairs is one year. Mentors and mentees should meet for one hour per month over video chat (e.g. Zoom). Mentorship might also involve occasional email correspondence for advice and/or friendly peer review. |
Enrollment is open to all members of the systematics and phylogenetics community that will meet the program's expectations of participants (described below).
Program Overview & Expectations: https://www.systbio.org/mentoring-program.html
For more information, email mentorship@systematicbiologists.org.
Program Overview & Expectations: https://www.systbio.org/mentoring-program.html
For more information, email mentorship@systematicbiologists.org.
Call for Reviewers - SSB Student Awards
SSB is always looking for reviewers for student awards competitions!
These awards include Graduate Student Research Awards, Mini-ARTS awards, and the Ernst Mayr Award. Serving as a reviewer for these award competitions is a critical role in our Society and directly supports early career researchers in systematics.
Please indicate your interest by filling out this form.
These awards include Graduate Student Research Awards, Mini-ARTS awards, and the Ernst Mayr Award. Serving as a reviewer for these award competitions is a critical role in our Society and directly supports early career researchers in systematics.
Please indicate your interest by filling out this form.
Thank you to the organizers of #SSB2023!
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The fifth SSB standalone meeting was held on the campus of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in México City, México on Jan. 14th and 15th, 2023.
#SSB2023 is now over - and what a fantastic meeting it was! Wonderful people, exciting science, and a great location. A huge thank you to all the organizers: Susana Magallón, Santiago Ramírez, Hernán Vázquez, Ricardo García, Alejandro González, Ivalú Cacho, Virginia León, Alejandro Oceguera, Helga Ochoterena, Alejandro Zaldivar, Alejandra Moreno, Arturo Becerra, Pablo Vinuesa SSB is so grateful for all your hard work! |
Proposed Code of Ethics
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Since 2018, there has been a tri-society initiative to develop a Code of Ethics for the Society for the Study of Evolution, the Society of Systematic Biologists, and the American Society of Naturalists. While behavior at the annual Evolution meeting falls under a Code of Conduct, the societies currently have no policies regarding conduct outside the meeting. Adopting Codes of Ethics will allow the societies to establish explicit standards of excellence and a transparent process for upholding these standards, and in so doing, foster societies that are welcoming for everyone. The three societies have now each drafted their own Codes of Ethics. Before each Code is put into place, we are seeking our members’ feedback and approval.
We invite you to visit the Code of Ethics website, review the standards of conduct and processes for enforcement, ask any questions you may have, and give your feedback. |
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SSB Legacy Committee
The new SSB Legacy Committee is working to create accessible content about our society's history. The founding members are Chris Simon, Michael Landis, Jim Rohlf, Gary Schnell, and Rosana Zenil-Ferguson. Go here for more information, and expect more soon.
Announcing The Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists
We are pleased to announce that the Society of Systematic Biologists launched a new journal on May 1st, 2021. The Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists (BSSB) will be published in collaboration with the Library Publishing Coalition at The Ohio State University Libraries. This innovative partnership will enable us to publish open access articles at a minimal cost to members of the Society of Systematic Biologists. Articles will be published without article processing charges (APCs) for SSB members. Stay tuned for the first issue of the Bulletin!
The Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists will publish manuscripts that advance our understanding of the Earth's biodiversity, with a special focus on investigations that describe how species are related (i.e., phylogeny), identified (e.g., species delimitation, morphometrics, taxonomic practice), or have evolved (e.g., phylogeography, biogeography, phylogenetic comparative methods). BSSB will also publish manuscripts that advance the theory or methods used in data analysis. Manuscripts will be evaluated on two criteria: the quality of the science and their contribution to our collective understanding of the focal species or clade. BSSB aims to publish investigations that utilize state of the art data analyses and high-quality data sets to achieve these goals.
Code of Conduct
We have a code of conduct at all our meetings; we encourage reporting of issues to members of the joint meeting council or members of our executive committee. All three societies are dedicated to making the meeting a welcoming place to all with no discrimination or harassment. To this end, we have created a form to aggregate the useful suggestions that have come in so far. To provide a suggestion, go here. To see the suggestions so far, please go here (SSB does not vet or approve of these suggestions -- we're merely aggregating them now for future discussion). Note that the form has been populated with public suggestions proposed on Twitter and Facebook so far (though the comments were made associated with names, it's not clear that people want their name associated, so only the first initial is included -- if you want your name included, please contact Brian O'Meara). We'll be doing more moving forward -- this is just a rapid response to capture ideas while they're fresh