Evolution 2009

The Society for the Study of Evolution, the American Society of Naturalists and the Society of Systematic Biologists will be holding their annual joint meeting this summer in lovely Moscow, Idaho. I received my Master's degree from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Idaho so the event will be something of a homecoming for me.

The meeting will be held June 12-16, 2009.

The venue of the meeting, Moscow, Idaho, is a western college town situated at the transition between the Northern Rockies and the rolling palouse grasslands of the interior Pacific Northwest. Moscow (pronounced "Mos-coh" by locals) was settled in 1871, and became home to the University of Idaho, Idaho's land-grant university, in 1889. UI and Washington State University (which is only six miles away in the town of Pullman, Washington) form a major center of biological research in the Pacific Northwest. Idaho is the state where protected wildernesses was first created, and within a short drive from Moscow you can enjoy world-class whitewater rafting, fishing, backcountry hiking and mountain climbing; go west and you'll cross the geological marvels of the channelled scablands to reach Washington's premier wine country.

Following the meeting, I am trying to arrange a raft trip to one of the fantastic wild rivers of Idaho: Selway, Lochsa, Salmon or Snake. Failing that, I will backpack in the largest contiguous wilderness area in the lower 48. I am looking forward to the woods almost as much as I am looking forward to the scientific program.