Awards

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Awards

The Gorbman-Bern Memorial Lectureship and New Independent Investigator Award were created in honour of Aubrey Gorbman and Howard A. Bern, founding fathers of the field of comparative endocrinology.

Aubrey Gorbman (1914-2003) was born in Detroit to Russian immigrants and graduated from Wayne State University in 1935. In 1940, he received his doctorate from the University of California-Berkley, where he also met his wife of 60 years, Genevieve. After his PhD, he spent some postdoctoral time with H.M. Evans at Berkeley and at other institutions. He also taught at Barnard College before moving to Seattle to become the chair of the Zoology Department at the University of Washington in 1963. There he remained a professor until he retired in 1985.

In the early 1960s, Professor Gorbman founded the journal of General and Comparative Endocrinology, for which he was Editor in Chief for 31 years. He organized the second international symposium on comparative endocrinology in 1958 and founded the Division of Comparative Endocrinology of the American Society of Zoologists (now Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology). With his colleague and friend Howard Bern, he coauthored the first textbook of comparative endocrinology, A Textbook of Comparative Endocrinology, in 1962.

In 1998, he received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring in from President Clinton, for his role in supporting women in science.

He died September 21 2003, in Seattle of Parkinson’s disease at the age of 88.

Tribute by Aubrey Gorbman: http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/44/4/329.full

Howard A. Bern (1920-2012) was born in Montreal and moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1933. He received his B.A in 1941 and his doctorate in 1948 from University of California- Los Angeles. In between degrees, he served four years in the military during World War II. After completing his PhD, he joined the Department of Zoology at the University of California-Berkeley as an instructor and in 1950 became assistant professor.

Since the first issue of General and Comparative Endocrinology, Professor Bern was a member of the Editorial Board for over 50 years. In 1990, he retired with the Berkley Citation, the highest honor for a faculty member. He became Professor emeritus and continued to be involved in the field of comparative endocrinology. He received numerous awards and honorary doctorates. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences.

In 2001, the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology inaugurated the Howard A. Bern Distinguished Lecture in Comparative Endocrinology. He died of cancer January 3, 2012 in Berkley at the age of 91.

Tribute by his former students and colleagues: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016648012000548

1. The Gorbman-Bern Memorial Lectureship

Terms and Criteria: This lectureship is awarded in recognition of significant and continuous contributions to the area of comparative endocrinology and the associated scientific community. One award is made at each NASCE meeting every 2 years.
Eligibility: The candidate must be a member of NASCE and working in North America at the time of nomination.
Benefit: Invited speaker with waived registration and paid travel. There may be a short highlight article in the official journal of the NASCE General and Comparative Endocrinology to summarize his/her contributions. The nominee will be awarded a plaque (or medal).
Application/nomination procedures: Nominations are submitted via email in PDF format and must include an up-to-date curriculum vitae, including a list of publications, and a brief statement (2 pages maximum) of the significance of the work for which the candidate is nominated. The nomination package may include a maximum of three letters of support in addition to the nomination letter. The nomination must indicate that the nominee is available to deliver the Gorbman-Bern Memorial Lectureship at the upcoming NASCE meeting. The deadline for application is September 15, 2024 and the award recipient will be announced by December 1, 2024. The completed nomination application should be sent by email to Dr. Valérie Langlois, President of NASCE (valerie.langlois@inrs.ca).

PAST AWARDEES

2023 – Vance Trudeau, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

2021 – Angela Lange, University of Toronto Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

2019 – Peter Thomas, University of Texas, Texas, USA

2017 – Robert Denver, University of Michigan, Michigan, USA

2015 – Glen Der Kraak, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada

2013 – Robert Dores, University of Denver, Colorado, USA

2. The Gorbman-Bern New Independent Investigator Award

Terms and Criteria: This award is given to a young investigator in recognition of significant and novel scientific contributions to the area of comparative endocrinology.
Eligibility: The candidate must be no more than 5 years into an independent career in academia, industry, or government scientific research. The candidate must be a member of NASCE and working in North America at the time of nomination.
Benefit: Invited speaker with waived registration and paid travel. There may be a short highlight article in General and Comparative Endocrinology to summarize his/her contributions. The candidate will be awarded a plaque (or medal).
Application/nomination procedures: Nominations are submitted by email in PDF format and must include an up-to-date curriculum vitae, including a list of publications. The nomination package may include a maximum of three letters of support in addition to the nomination letter. The nomination letter must briefly outline the justification for the nomination. The nomination must indicate when the nominee began his/her independent position and is available to deliver the Gorbman-Bern New Independent Investigator Lecture at the NASCE meeting. The deadline for application is September 15, 2024 and the award recipient will be announced by December 1, 2024. The completed nomination application should be sent by email to Dr. Valérie Langlois, President of NASCE (valerie.langlois@inrs.ca).

PAST AWARDEES

2021 – Jan Mennigen, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

2019 – Jason Breves, Skidmore College, NY, USA

2017 – Valérie Langlois, Royal Canadian Military College of Canada, Ontario, Canada

2015 – Deborah Lutterschmidt, Portland State University, Oregon, USA

2013 – Chris Martyniuk, University of New Brunswick, New Brunswick, CA

3. The Louis J. Guillette, Jr. Graduate Student Travel Award

This award is made in honor of the memory of Professor Louis Guillette, Jr. An award in the amount of US$500 will be made at the time of the biennial NASCE conference to a graduate student or postdoctoral fellow working in the general area of field/wildlife endocrinology. Awardees must apply prior to the conference, and will be selected based on review of their curriculum vitae and the quality of their submitted abstract for the upcoming biennial NASCE conference.

To be nominated for the award, the following criteria must be met:

–          the nominee is a member of NASCE (to renew membership please go to http://nasce-snaec.com/membership/ )

–        the nominee has registered for the upcoming NASCE meeting in Quebec, Canada (June 1 – 5, 2025)  

–          the nominee has submitted an abstract for the Congress for either a contributed oral presentation

Faculty advisors please provide a nominating letter, and the C.V. of the nominee. The deadline for submitting nominations is April 15, 2023. Please send all nominating materials by email to the NASCE Awards Committee Chair, Hamid R. Habibi (habibi@ucalgary.ca).

PAST AWARDEES

2023 – Femilarani Antomagesh, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

2021 – Elizabeth Brammer-Robbins, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA

2019 – Lucas Greville, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

2017 – Ciaran Shaughnessy, University of Massachusetts, Massachusetts, USA

Donations to the Louis J. Guillette, Jr. Graduate Student Travel Award Fund can be made via Paypal by following the link below, or by check made out to the North American Society for Comparative Endocrinology sent to Dr. Chris Martyniuk, NASCE Banker, Department of Physiological Sciences, University of Florida, 2187 Mowry Road, Bldg 471, PO Box 110885, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA.