The American Society of Naturalists gives out several awards every year, for students (American Naturalist Student Paper Award; Ruth Patrick Student Poster Award), young investigators (Jasper Loftus-Hills Young Investigator Prizes), and senior researchers (Sewall Wright Award, E.O. Wilson Naturalist Award), and the Presidential Award for a best paper published in The American Naturalist. As usual, these awards will be presented at the summer joint meeting with the Society for the Study of Evolution and the Society for Systematic Biology.

In addition to the regular ASN awards to be presented at the summer meeting, three awards will be presented at the Asilomar conference:

1. Ed Ricketts Award for an outstanding student oral presentation. In honor of the naturalist and zoologist Ed Ricketts (the model for ‘Doc’ in Steinbeck’s book Cannery Row), the ASN will present the winning student with a plaque and $400 award. When registering a talk, current undergraduate, masters, or PhD students may opt to be considered for this award.
2. Ruth Patrick Student Poster Award for an outstanding student poster. The winning presenter will receive a plaque and $400 award. When registering a talk, current undergraduate, masters, or PhD students may opt to be considered for this award. This award honors Ruth Patrick, a prominent botanist and limnologist who won the 1996 National Medal of Science.
3. Don Abbott Postdoctoral Research Award for an outstanding contributed presentation (talk or poster) by a current postdoc. The award commemorates Don Abbott, a professor at Stanford University and Hopkins Marine Station, an outstanding teacher and marine invertebrate researcher (http://www- marine.stanford.edu/abbott.html). The winning presenter will receive a plaque and $500 award. When registering a talk, current postdoctoral researchers may opt to be considered for this award.

Images courtesy Hopkins Marine Station