Special Sessions

If you think your talk fits into one of these two special sessions, be sure to submit your abstract indicating the special session as your primary topic.

Sally Woodin and Soft-Sediment Ecology
Dr. Sarah “Sally” Woodin, a past-President of the Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology (SICB), Carolina Distinguished Professor, and former Chair in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of South Carolina recently retired. Sally’s prolific and diverse research in marine soft sediment ecology has changed the way scientists understand and approach this field. To celebrate Sally’s research impact, her service to SICB, her outstanding mentoring, and generosity as a role model to many, we are hosting a one-day special session in her honor at the 2015 SICB meeting. Reflecting the diversity of Sally’s research interests and the paths of her students, postdocs and research collaborators, we expect a varied program. Time for discussion & reflection will be built into the schedule.

Teaching Marine Biology
Marine biology classes have been taught for a long time in the United States (for example, more than a hundred years at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, MA), and the number of institutions offering marine biology has grown steadily. This subject is now part of the curriculum at a large number of colleges (~500) in coastal and non-coastal states, and may be introductory in nature or specialized (such as marine botany, or coastal ecology). How marine biology courses are taught, and what is included in a course, can be extremely variable, depending on location, the institution, and the interests and training of the instructor. The aim of this session is to bring together speakers, and audience attendees, with interest and experience in the field so that ideas and techniques may be exchanged.