Guest Post: Why You Should Nominate for Awards

Posted by Jon Miller on October 11, 2023

Guest post by ESA Awards Chair Nate Sanders

Do you know that feeling when one of your graduate students gets their first paper published? When a postdoc in your lab lands the job of their dreams? When a policy you’ve been working on finally gets implemented, and you can see it’s having positive effects on an environmental issue? Doesn’t that feel good?

You know what else feels good? Nominating a colleague, collaborator, student, mentor, or friend for an ESA Award and seeing them win it!

For a few years, I was chair of the ESA Fellows and Early Career Fellows Subcommittee and got to email folks to let them know they’d been selected. Folks were so honored and excited to know that their peers recognized all of the hard work they’d been doing — the cool research, teaching, outreach, policy development, and management that they’d devoted so much energy to. Reading their responses about how overjoyed they were at being selected was truly one of the highlights of the year for me.

And you can have that feeling too! Nominate someone for one of the many awards ESA offers! We’ve tried to make it easy and straightforward to nominate someone, now allowing their direct collaboration in the process.

Awards build recognition and can open up exciting new career opportunities, especially for scientists traditionally underrepresented in our field. And we know that there are SO MANY ecologists out there who deserve recognition and celebration. So, take a few minutes (okay, maybe an hour …) and figure out who within your vast networks you’d like to nominate, and then start your nomination!

Share this article

News

COP16 Dispatch: Week 2 From the Classroom to the Conference Floor, A Student’s Journey in Biodiversity Diplomacy

At COP16, Alexa Theodoropoulos balanced schoolwork with engaging in key biodiversity discussions. She witnessed the urgency of action and the crucial role of youth in shaping global commitments. While progress was made, she emphasizes that accountability is essential and that students have a responsibility to ensure these goals lead to real change.

Read Post
COP16 Dispatch: Week 2 Open Source and LLMs, Reflections from the Back Row of COP16

Cristian Román shares unique insights from attending COP16 in Cali, Colombia, exploring the interplay of science, policy, and equity. Highlights include challenges with proprietary biodiversity tools, ethical concerns surrounding AI in policy compliance, and academia’s role in negotiations, raising critical questions about accessibility, collaboration, and power dynamics.

Read Post
COP16 Dispatch: Week 2 How Does Science Participate in the Biodiversity Convention? The Case of Invasive Species at COP16

At COP16 in Cali, October 2024, Alejandra Osejo-Varona, PhD Candidate in Anthropology at Rice University, shares insights on how scientists and decision-makers collaborated to address invasive alien species (IAS). The conference presented scientific tools and assessments, such as the IPBES report and IUCN toolkit, to guide the implementation of Target 6 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

Read Post
COP16 Dispatch: Week 1 From the talk to the World, Women Scientists Discuss Citizen Science

Women scientists and community leaders are reshaping conservation through citizen science, integrating Indigenous knowledge, and advocating for policy change. At COP16-Columbia, Cindy Julianty and Tanya Majdumar showcased how grassroots initiatives led by women empower local communities, preserve biodiversity, and ensure sustainable conservation efforts. Their stories highlight resilience, innovation, and a call for global action.

Read Post

View All News

Archived News

Join ESA

The Ecological Society of America is a community of 9,000 scientists, researchers, decision makers, policy managers, and educators who are dedicated to understanding life on earth. We are an advocate for ecology and a voice for ecologists. ESA strengthens connections within and outside our community to support your work and promotes ecological science. As our discipline expands its boundaries with new ideas, new experimental tools, and the recruitment of young scientists, we hope you will join us!