2/18/2025
News from Royal Society Publishing
Royal Society Publishing has recently published a special issue of Philosophical Transactions B entitled "A mathematical theory of evolution": phylogenetic models dating back 100 years compiled and edited by SMTPB members Noah Rosenberg, Tanja Stadler and Mike Steel and the articles can be accessed directly here. Authors in this issue Simon Tavaré, Amaury Lambert, and Katia Koelle presented in the first program of SMTPBconnect events on May 8th, 2024 - watch the videos of their talks here.
Royal Society Publishing is also looking for new theme issues -- if you are interested in submitting, please read about the experience of former Guest Editors and download the flyer. Then, if interested, contact the Commissioning Editor, Helen Eaton, with your ideas.
Additionally, early career researchers are invited to apply to join the Royal Society Publishing Early Career Researcher Advisory Panel, open for applications until 14 March 2025.
2/11/2025
Interview on ScienceWise
SMTPB board member Maria Orive is interviewed for ScienceWise! You can listen to the episode here. Dr. Orive discusses growing up in a Cuban American community in Olympia, Washington, and her academic journey through Stanford and UC Berkeley. Dr. Orive highlights the significance of mentorship, the importance of resilience, and the balance between work and personal life in academia.
9/23/2024
Publication in TREE
A summary by Oana Carja and Gili Greenbaum of the SMTPB conference at the Banff International Research Station (BIRS) appears in Trends in Ecology in Evolution. Click here to read!
Oana Carja Gili Greenbaum
Introducing the Williamson Award
We are pleased to announce a new early career award, named in memory of Scott Williamson. Beginning in 2025, the Scott Williamson Award will be awarded annually by SMTPB to recognize the achievements and promise of an outstanding early-career researcher in the area of modeling and theory in population biology.
Scott Williamson (1975-2008) was an accomplished early-career researcher who worked in theoretical population genetics and evolutionary modeling. A humble, kind, and well-liked scientist, Scott made significant theory contributions to understanding the dynamics of natural selection in populations. His work employed several modeling traditions, including coalescent theory, Poisson random fields, and sequence substitution models. He also applied insights from statistical population genetics to study selection from genetic sequences in many different organisms, including Drosophila, humans, rice, and HIV. A native of Kansas, Scott received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Kansas. Shortly after starting a faculty position at Cornell University, Scott passed away from brain cancer.
We are seeking nominations with a deadline of December 13, 2024. Please click here for eligibility and nomination information. For this first cycle, we are not requiring that nominators and nominees already be SMTPB members. We welcome donations to help to continue to offer this prize in future years. SMTPB is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
For full eligibility details, please see the awards page.
Diffusions newsletter arriving to your inboxes soon
To save you excitedly refreshing this news page for updates, the society will be sending out newsletters with details of upcoming SMTPB happenings starting in autumn 2024. An archive of Diffusions newsletters will appear here.
9/16/2024
Seeking Board Members!
The SMTPB Board of Directors seeks nominations and self-nominations for open positions. Positions available include 3 board members, the secretary, and the vice-president/president for a term of January 1, 2025 to December 31, 2028. The vice president serves for two years in this role, becoming president for the last two years of their term.Please send to jfoot@stanford.edu names and email addresses for anyone who you think would be suited for a leadership role as we continue to develop the organization and launch new programs. Early-career nominations are welcome and will be considered, including postdocs and PhD students nearing graduation. The board is serving as the nominating committee. Positions are detailed further in the SMTPB bylaws.
Please watch for further announcements about our upcoming election. Nominations are due October 4th, 2024.
8/21/2024
The full report of the society's first in-person meeting at the Banff International Research Station (BIRS) on May 19-24, 2024, is now available on the BIRS website! Click here to read.
8/14/2024
Princeton University Press is offering a 30% discount to SMTPB members for all books in their collection through the end of 2025, including their Monographs in Population Biology series and the Princeton Series in Theoretical and Computational Biology. Click here for the code to apply at checkout (must logged in to your membership account to access).
