2026 Election of Student Representative
As a student member of SSB, you have the opportunity to vote for SSB’s student representatives. Those elected will serve for the next two years working on various activities that enhance the experiences of SSB’s members and promote systematics research. Student representatives have the same status and voting privileges as Councilors. Each representative will serve a two-year term, and one new representative is elected each year, allowing their terms to be staggered. Student representatives will work on activities that include, but are not limited to, developing and setting the budgets for Society initiatives, planning SSB events at conferences, working with the editor of Systematic Biology and the journal publisher, distributing student awards, and generally making sure that SSB is doing what it can to support you!
To vote, review the candidate information, listed in alphabetic order, below. Then, log in with your username (registered email) and password. Only those with active SSB Student Memberships will be able to vote in the election.
The ballot closes on June 25, 2026 at 11:59 PM EST. If you run into any problems logging into your account or casting your vote, please let us know by email ([email protected]).
Thank you for your continued involvement in the Society of Systematic Biologists!
Results of the election will be tallied by the Nominating Committee and verified by the Executive Director.
CANDIDATES FOR STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE
Raymond Castillo
PhD Candidate
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Washington University, US
To vote, review the candidate information, listed in alphabetic order, below. Then, log in with your username (registered email) and password. Only those with active SSB Student Memberships will be able to vote in the election.
The ballot closes on June 25, 2026 at 11:59 PM EST. If you run into any problems logging into your account or casting your vote, please let us know by email ([email protected]).
Thank you for your continued involvement in the Society of Systematic Biologists!
Results of the election will be tallied by the Nominating Committee and verified by the Executive Director.
CANDIDATES FOR STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE
Raymond Castillo
PhD Candidate
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Washington University, US
Candidate Statement: I am currently a PhD candidate at Washington University in St. Louis researching phylogenetic comparative methods in the lab of Michael Landis. As the first scientist in my family, I began my educational journey without an understanding of how to navigate higher education. For this reason, I am eternally grateful for all my mentors throughout my training that not only supported my education but also showed me what opportunities were available out there. I had always been curious about research as a career path as it was not something I thought was possible for me. This is partly due to being a queer Latino, I had not encountered many people with similar backgrounds in research roles which was compounded with how inaccessible academia had seemed for someone looking in. As I progressed in my undergraduate, I began to truly appreciate my advisors and mentors for making my education possible which led me to begin working part time as a peer mentor in 2021 in which I helped incoming students get adjusted to college life, especially after the lockdowns during the global pandemic. Navigating the difficult and fulfilling path of research has not been easy, but it was made possible by those around me I was fortunate enough to meet, removing barriers and paving the path to get here. I aim to follow their example and increase accessibility in science, which I would be honored to do so serving as a student representative of SSB.
Katherine O. Montana
PhD Candidate
Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior
City University of New York Graduate Center
PhD Candidate
Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior
City University of New York Graduate Center
Candidate Statement: As a systematist since my first research experience in undergrad, systematics is core to my research and, indeed, my worldview. I see the work of discovering the relationships between lineages and how they have changed over time as beautiful and elemental to understanding the world’s fundamental processes. It would be an honor to serve this community of scientists in SSB who share this motivation, each with their own unique approach informed by their academic and personal backgrounds. I approach the work via arthropod evolution, specifically dragonfly phylogenetics and the morphological and genomic elements of dragonfly reproduction, focused on the female side of mating. I have served as a grad rep in other organizations including the Curators Forum at the California Academy of Sciences during my master’s and currently the Comparative Biology PhD Program Committee at the American Museum of Natural History. My societal service with the Worldwide Dragonfly Association, Dragonfly Society of the Americas, EntoPOC, and the Entomological Society of America has also prepared me well for this role. I look forward to building relationships within SSB and between members of the sister societies of SSE and ASN. I see the grad rep role as a liaison to support students in meeting one another and mentors, get students the information they need from leaders in our field, ensure the student voice is heard in SSB, and find opportunities to expand and deepen students’ research. I hope you will entrust me with this responsibility and that we can meet soon!