Nominations are sought for the Howard A. Bern Lecture. The Howard A. Bern Lecture was created by the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) to honor the outstanding contributions of Professor Howard A. Bern to the field of comparative endocrinology and to the society. Professor Bern delivered the inaugural lecture in 2002. Since then, the lecture is given annually at the SICB meeting by a scientist who has made significant contributions to the field of comparative endocrinology. Scientists from around the world are eligible, and affiliation with SICB is not required. A list of past Bern lecturers is available here. Nominations should include the following items: 1) a letter that highlights the nominee’s contributions to the field of comparative endocrinology (e.g., significance and impact of work, publication record, mentoring, professional service to the discipline) and indicates how these contributions merit selection, 2) a one-page profile of the nominee, and 3) a curriculum vitae of the nominee. Nomination packages should be submitted here by the annual deadline of August 1.
Professor Bern was one of the founders of the field of comparative endocrinology and was a pioneer in the study of endocrine disruption. He joined the faculty of the University of California Berkeley in 1948 and remained active even after his formal retirement in 1990. Professor Bern directed the work of 36 M.A. students, 46 Ph.D. students, and over 90 postdoctoral fellows and visiting scientists from around the world. His research interests have been wide-ranging – including control of growth, development, metabolism, osmoregulation, and tumor biology – and have resulted in over 600 publications. Together with the late Professor Aubrey Gorbman, Professor Bern co-authored A Textbook of Comparative Endocrinology in 1962, a seminal work that shaped the thinking and careers of a vast number of scientists around the globe. Professor Bern was elected President of SICB (then American Society of Zoologists, 1967), member of the National Academy of Sciences (1973), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1977), Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1990), and was the recipient of the Outstanding Achievement Award from the American Institute of Fisheries Research Biologists (2003). Howard Bern passed away in January 2012, but his many contributions to biology and the people whose lives he touched live on.
Previous Bern lecturers are listed on this website: https://sicb.org/divisions/division-of-comparative-endocrinology/.
