The CSEE Early Career Awards (ECA) recognize outstanding accomplishments and promising future research potential in ecology and evolution by scientists early in their careers. The evaluation committee was extremely impressed with the overall quality of applicants for the 2018 awards, so the process was both gratifying and difficult. This year’s recipients of the ECA were Stephen de Lisle (Postdoctoral Scholar, Lund University; Ph.D. University of Toronto) and Patrick Thompson (Postdoctoral Fellow, University of British Columbia; Ph.D. McGill University). Congratulations to Stephen and Patrick!

Stephen de Lisle

Postdoctoral Scholar (Lund University); Ph.D. University of Toronto

Stephen is an evolutionary ecologist interested in understanding how ecological processes drive evolutionary change within and between species. In particular, his research focuses on organisms with separate sexes to understand how and why selection and adaptation differ between males and females of the same species, and how the resulting evolution of sex differences influences both ecological communities and the dynamics of deep-time macroevolutionary diversification. In order to connect process and pattern across these disparate timescales, his research uses a wide range of approaches including ecological field experiments and surveys of wild populations, evolutionary quantitative genetics, and phylogenetic comparative methods.

Patrick Thompson

Postdoctoral Fellow (University of British Columbia); Ph.D. McGill University

Patrick Thompson is a community ecologist who seeks to understand the processes that maintain biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in changing environments. His research integrates theory and empirical methods in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems to study how changing land scape connectivity, food-web interactions, and adaptation combine to shape current and future communities. By developing and testing theory on how these processes interactively affect how communities respond to environmental change, his work advances our understanding of how communities operate and seeks to inform strategies for preserving biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in the face of global change.