Alumni we hope you remember how important an early financial boost was in your graduate research. Generations of E&E graduate students got a start from grant funds, especially from a series of research funds that honor the founders of our Department. Can you help our current students, who are as excellent as you were and still have pressing needs to get that crucial startup that will get them that crucial set of supplies, travel to far flung but important field sites, and so many other needs? Your successors are still doing well in getting grants, Dissertation Improvement grants, etc., but we still are ever needy of funds to boost their starting careers. So......please give this season! It is tax deductible, uplifting, and will remind you of your own past days of research beginnings. This of course is also directed to our current E&E community. Please give generously!

Three E&E graduate students, Emily Herestof, Ben Weinstein, and Laurel Yohe  were awarded National Science Foundation predoctoral fellowships. Walt Eanes and Lev Ginzburg were named AAAS Fellows recently. Liliana Davalos and Jeff Levinton were named National Academies Education Fellows in the Life Sciences. Jessica Gurevitch was named a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America. Heather Lynch was awarded an N.S.F. 5-year Career Development Award. Doug Futuyma received an Honorary Doctoral degree from the National University of Mongolia in May, when he visited the University in appreciation of the translation of his textbook (Evolution) into Mongolian. He also received the Joseph Leidy medal from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Past winners include E.O. Wilson and Dan Janzen.