The ASN has chosen three new officers, who will be joining the Executive Committee in the New Year. We congratulate the winners, whose election statements are presented below, as well as the distinguished runners-up, Diane R. Campbell, Andrew P. Hendry, and Jeremy B. Yoder.
Results of the 2025 Election
Posted on
Jennifer A. Lau, President 2027 (serving 2026–2030)
Election Statement:
I am honored to be nominated and enthusiastic about the potential to serve as ASN president. My research spans from community ecology to evolution, but I am most excited by questions at the nexus of these two disciplines: how community context affects evolution and how evolution affects community functioning. My research has been heavily influenced by the past and current members of the ASN and by reading the American Naturalist—nowhere else are ecology, evolution, and behavior so fully integrated.
I received my B.S. in Biology from Duke University and my PhD from UC Davis, working with Sharon Strauss. I then moved to Minnesota for a postdoc with Peter Tiffin, Ruth Shaw, and Peter Reich and then to Michigan State University’s Kellogg Biological Station (KBS), where I was an Assistant and then Associate Professor and became involved in the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) network. In 2018, I moved to Indiana University, where I am now Professor. My training at Davis covered both ecology and evolution, and my years at KBS taught me how to apply that broad perspective in new ways, such as capitalizing on the LTER and its long-term community and ecosystem data to better understand evolution.
I have long appreciated the ASN, starting with receiving the Young Investigators’ Award (now the “ASN Early Career Investigator Award”) and participating in the award symposium when I was a postdoc. I then served on the Graduate Student Research Awards Committee (2014–2015) and was elected to the ASN Executive Council in 2016 as Secretary and served for 6 years (3 as Secretary, 3 as past-Secretary). In 2019, I was asked to serve as one of the Editors for the American Naturalist and did so until 2023. This was one of the most challenging, but also rewarding, experiences of my career. Reading over 200 manuscripts a year is no small task, but the work submitted to Am Nat is phenomenal, and the discussions and interactions with authors, reviewers, and associate editors were truly engaging. The pandemic made that time more challenging, but reading manuscripts and thoughtful associate editor decisions and reviews was often the highlight of my day. I currently serve on the ASN Committee for the Conceptual Unification of the Biological Sciences Award and also have served on several award committees for the Ecological Society of America. I have become increasingly involved in the LTER Network, serving on the KBS LTER exec team since 2014 and the LTER 40-year review committee in 2019.
Throughout my career, I had the good fortune to benefit from truly great mentors, both formal and informal, nearly all of whom have played fundamental roles in the ASN. If elected President, I would advocate for programs that continue that tradition of supporting more junior scientists, including maintaining existing programs like the mentor match-ups and mixers run by the ASN Diversity committee, but also soliciting ideas from the membership for new programs that expand and increase the accessibility of these activities. Relatedly, one of the great things about the ASN is its ability to get biologists talking science across ecology and evolution, whether in our journal or in person at Asilomar. We have strong connections to the evolution community through the tri-society Evolution meetings. As ASN president, I would advocate for expanding our ties to the ecological community, potentially by building connections to the regional Ecological Society of America meetings that have recently begun. Finally, ASN is prevented from political advocacy because of our non-profit designation; however, we can be general advocates for science. Given the current climate for science funding and public perceptions about science, such advocacy has never been more important. ASN’s roots in natural history and our history of bridging across disciplines give us tools for effectively engaging as science advocates. I would like to explore ways for ASN to facilitate that advocacy, whether it’s by training ourselves how to more effectively share our science with broader audiences or facilitating events that bridge barriers between scientists and the general public.
Martha M. Muñoz, Vice President 2027 (serving 2026–2028)
Election Statement:
I am excited to be considered for the position of Vice President in the American Society of Naturalists. I am an evolutionary biologist, and my research centers on discovering the motors and brakes of evolution. One of the most conspicuous features of evolution is its uneven pace: whereas some traits and lineages appear relatively inert for millions of years, others diversify rapidly. What causes this disparity? Why does evolution accelerate in some lineages and stall in others? Focusing primarily on reptiles, amphibians, and fishes, I investigate the biotic and abiotic mechanisms that guide the rate of evolution. To this end, my work weaves together approaches in ecology, evolution, behavior, physiology, biomechanics, comparative phylogenetics, and more. Much of my work has centered on investigating the role of behavior in evolution, specifically on the role for homeostatic behaviors (like thermo- and hydroregulation) to set the pace for physiological and morphological evolution, and to guide spatial patterns of biodiversity. The intellectual breadth and vitality of both the society and the journal have been fundamental to my growth as a scientist, and also a home for some of my favorite studies!
I received a BA in Biology from Boston University (2007), where I performed my first studies on Caribbean anoles. I then completed a PhD in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard (2014), where I studied with Jonathan Losos. I followed up my doctoral work with postdoctoral fellowships at the Australian National University (with Craig Moritz) and Duke (with Sheila Patek). While at Duke, I received the ASN Early Career Investigator Prize. After these postdoctoral fellowships, I joined the Department of Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech in 2017 as an assistant professor. In 2019 I joined the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, where I also serve as a Curator of Vertebrate Zoology in the Yale Peabody Museum. Beyond life at the university, I have been enjoying all the excellent hiking that New England offers.
Throughout my career I have served the academic community in a range of roles. I served as the Program Officer (2022–23) and Secretary (2019–20) for the Division of Ecology and Evolution in the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB). I also served on the SICB Public Affairs Committee (2017–21) and the SICB Bartholomew Award Committee (2022). I was an Associate Editor for Integrative Organismal Biology (a SICB journal) from 2021–2022. I am currently a Council Member (2024-26) for the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), for which I serve on the Finance Committee and on the Graduate Research Excellence Grants committee.
I have also participated in the American Society of Naturalists in a variety of roles. I have served on the Early Career Investigator Award Committee since 2023 and am currently serving as the 2025 committee chair. I became an Associate Editor for The American Naturalist in 2022. I appreciate that Associate Editors and the Editors for Am. Nat. play a direct role in the review process, and that the journal has a long tradition of providing rigorous and courteous review; these features motivated me to join the board and my wonderful experience working with the authors, editors, and journal staff encourage me to continue. In my role as AE, I find it especially rewarding to work with early career authors on their manuscripts.
The American Society of Naturalists is special in our field by providing a place where ecology, evolution, behavior, and organismal biology intentionally intersect. The intellectual contours of integrative biology can all find their home in the ASN. My goal would be to help contribute to this long-standing integrative vision through the VP symposium. I would organize a symposium on the role of behavior in evolution. My goal would be to make this topic broadly circumscribed and integrative. I would invite speakers whose work span a wide range of complementary topics, such as niche construction, the role of behavior in adaptive radiation, sexual selection and mate choice, the evolution of behavior, community ecology, ecophysiology, eco-evo dynamics, global change biology, and macroevolution, among others.
Stephen R. Proulx, ASN Treasurer 2026–2028
Election Statement:
It is a real honor to be nominated to serve as Treasurer for The American Society of Naturalists and to have a chance to continue to participate in this organization, which has brought so much to my life over the years. I first really became aware of the journal in graduate school, when I would spend lunch in the grad library reading both the very old and latest issues. That was when I learned how much richer the scope of scientific discovery and discourse could be, and knew that the kind of science promoted by The American Naturalist was something I wanted to be involved in. Participating in this society and attending joint and stand-alone meetings helped me to grow into the evolutionary ecologist I am today.
My academic path started as an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz, where I studied mathematics and biology, and developed particular interest in behavioral ecology and population biology. I went on to work on my PhD at the University of Utah, where the environment and my interests grew to include thinking about the joint processes of ecology and evolution, and when my first scientific publication appeared in Am Nat. I followed that by taking up a postdoc at the University of Toronto, and then received an NIH postdoctoral fellowship to study the evolution of gene interactions at the University of Oregon. I was an Assistant Professor at Iowa State University before moving into my current position as a Professor at UC Santa Barbara.
Serving in my community has always been a priority and passion for me. In the past I have organized symposia at the Evolution meetings, working groups at NESCent, and stand-alone workshops at L’École Normale Supérieure in Paris. I served as an Associate Editor for Am Nat for five years. Most recently, Andrew Hendry and I served as lead organizers for the stand-alone Am Nat meeting at Asilomar in January 2025. As I have participated in these different aspects of the American Society of Naturalists, I have had the opportunity to learn more about how the organization is run and how we can continue to promote the society as a beacon of scientific exploration and inclusivity.
The Treasurer’s role involves managing the society’s finances, overseeing budgets, and ensuring funds are allocated effectively to support research, meetings, and outreach efforts. As Treasurer and a member of the executive committee I would be committed to ensuring that decisions on spending are always considered with an eye towards equity and inclusivity. This includes increasing support for individuals from historically marginalized and underseen backgrounds, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and first-generation scientists, to foster a truly diverse and welcoming scientific community. My experience in organizational leadership and working in a dispersed team, combined with my passion for promoting diverse voices in science, will allow me to make a meaningful impact in this role.