- Roy E. Plotnick, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago.

In the old days, before the advent of the internet and the personal computer, you kept up on the scientific literature by going to the library and examining the stacks of new journals that had just arrived. If you wanted to pursue an area of research and write your own paper, you searched the library stacks, guided by the list of references in the back of published papers and the huge published volumes, such as the Bibliography and Index of Geology, that catalogued the papers on the subject. You may also find out, perhaps guided by more senior scientists, that there were certain critical papers in your area that you needed to read. 

All this, of course, has changed. You can receive emails from journals announcing newly published, or about to be published papers. The development of massive online reference databases, such as Web of Science, GeoRef, and Google Scholar have made searching for papers on a topic lightning fast, with the ability to immediately download the publication and enter it into a personal bibliographic database. And most usefully, the databases have links to both the papers in the paper’s reference list and those that, in turn, cite the publication in question, with each papers number of citations being tabulated. To a first approximation, one can assume that the more citations a paper has, the more important it is to read. 

The Paleontological Society Journals are seeking two Editorial Interns to attend the 2022 Geological Society of America Annual Meeting and assist our editorial boards in recruiting new paper submissions. Interns will get an inside look at academic publishing and assist Journal of Paleontology and Paleobiology in diversifying our content and our authorship. Each intern will receive a $2000 stipend to cover the costs of attending the 2022 GSA Annual Meeting. 

Program Description
Prior to the GSA meeting, and with guidance from the editorial boards for Paleobiology and Journal of Paleontology, interns will scan abstracts for presentations that fit within the scope of the two journals, have the potential to be high impact, and are written by students and early career scientists. Interns will then attend presentations and write up short summaries of promising submissions for each editorial board. Journal editors can then contact presenters and encourage them to submit to the appropriate journal.

The Paleontological Society has entered into agreements with two services to facilitate the reporting of alleged violations to our Code of Conduct. These go under the names of NAVEX and Vault.

Both services have secure web-based portals that are now accessible from the PS website. Instructions on how to access and use these platforms can be found here.

The year 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark 1972 paper by Niles Eldredge and Stephen J. Gould that introduced the concept of punctuated equilibrium to the fields of paleontology and evolutionary biology.

In honor of this anniversary, I am conducting a survey-based study to better understand how people define the concept of punctuated equilibrium and to what extent they use it in their research and teaching.

There are 22 Topical Sessions at GSA Connects 2022 that are endorsed by the Paleo Society! Consider submitting your abstract(s) to these!

T102. Comings and Goings of Proterozoic Global Glaciations
Leaders: Bing Shen; Maoyan Zhu; and Xianguo Lang
Endorsers: Geochemical Society; GSA Geobiology and Geomicrobiology Division; Paleontological Society
Description: This session focuses on global glaciations and geology-geobiology in the Proterozoic.

The Paleontological Society is pleased to announce the fourth annual “Future Leaders in Paleontology” topical session at the 2022 GSA Annual Meeting. The goal of the session is to showcase the outstanding work of our student members in a high-profile setting. The Society will limit the number of paleontological sessions running concurrently with this special session, in order to have a prominent platform for our student members.

The Society invites all of its student members and recent graduates receiving a degree within the last year, particularly those nearing completion of their projects, to submit an abstract to GSA and fill out this Google Form. The session will bring together all types of paleontological research, spanning the full range of taxonomic groups, methods, and disciplines within our field. While advisors and other study participants are permitted to be co-authors on the presentation, the work must primarily reflect intellectual contributions of the student submitting the abstract.

The Karl-Armin Tröger Memorial Inoceramid Workshop (supported in part by the Paleontological Society) will be held this year in Warsaw, Poland during the 11th International Cretaceous Symposium (August 22-26, 2022). Inoceramids are an extinct family of marine pteriomorph bivalves which ranged from the Early Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous. While inoceramid bivalves are a powerful and increasingly used tool in Cretaceous biostratigraphy and paleoecology, their underlying systematic hierarchy, phylogenies and macroevolutionary trends have proven difficult to define and standardize.  

Save the Date for the PS 2022 Short Course on Ecological Niche Modeling!

When: Saturday, October 8^th from 8am to 5pm.
Where: Denver, CO Convention Center 
Who:  Everyone interested in learning about how to use and understand niche modeling methods for paleontological datasets. 
Registration: No required, Free to everyone
What/Description: 
This year’s short course will introduce participants to Ecological Niche Modeling (ENM) is a technique that combines organismal occurrence data with environmental parameters to quantitatively estimate the ecological niches of taxa. This approach and its derivative methods can be used to test a wide variety of hypotheses about the relationship of earth-life change through time within the remit of macroevolution, ecology, and biogeography. 

The Palaeontological Association's Annual Meeting: Cork, Ireland (July 18-24, 2022)

The Annual Meeting of the Palaeontological Association will be held at University College Cork (UCC). The meeting will consist of various events targeted at the general public on Monday 18th July and an early career researcher event on Tuesday 19th July. Workshops, laboratory tours and the symposium will take place on Wednesday the 20th of July, followed by the core scientific sessions (July 21 & 22). There will be a two-day post-conference fieldtrip on (July 23 & 24). 

The Paleontological Society International Research Program, or PalSIRP, is the Paleontological Society’s answer to disparities in funding for basic research in low- and middle-income countries around the world. While the program has expanded in important ways over the past two and a half decades, it has the potential to do more to address global inequities in the funding of paleontological research. Please read on for a description of this vital initiative and, if you are interested in supporting its goals, you can donate at: https://www.paleosoc.org/donate and choose PalSIRP Sepkoski Grants. 

PalSIRP was established in 1994 through the efforts of J. John (Jack) Sepkoski, Jr., after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union and demise of the Warsaw Pact saw funding support for paleontological research in those countries all but vanish. As originally conceived, PalSIRP was a small grants program ($500 in most cases) for paleontologists living in Eastern Europe and republics of the former Soviet Union. Seed money for PalSIRP came from internal Society resources. 

Due: 5 PM (Pacific time zone), Friday March 4, 2022

Paleontological Society funds are available to support meetings or sessions organized by society members. Our first priority is to provide up to US$1000 to support stand-alone meetings, where your group is organizing the entire conference. If additional funds are available, we can also support speakers at individual sessions within larger meetings. If you are organizing a topical session within a larger meeting, we can provide US$400 per invited speaker for up to two presenters.

The Paleontological Society has a Code of Conduct that applies to society events and members, including at meetings sponsored by the society. Anyone witnessing prohibited behavior should file an allegation report with the ethics committee. We also encourage conference organizers to take proactive steps to create an inclusive meeting; many specific actions are described here.

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Mary Droser has received the National Academy of Sciences Charles D. Walcott Medal for her studies of early animal evolution and ecology. 

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Droser, a Paleontological Society member who has contributed greatly to the Paleontological Society through her numerous service activities, and to the discipline of paleontology through her teaching, mentorship of students, and exemplary good will. 

Please consider nominating one of your colleagues for Paleontological Society Fellow. Any PS member can nominate, though the nomination letter needs support from at least one PS Fellow. The deadline for nominations is February 28th. Click here for more information.

Note that the nomination process has changed. Multiple letters in support of a nominee will no longer be accepted; rather, nominators should submit a single, integrated letter, no more than three pages long, signed by at least two and no more than three PS members, at least one of whom must be an active Fellow.

The Paleontological Society is soliciting nominations for the 2022–2024 Student Representative! The new representative will serve a two-year term that overlaps with our current Student Rep Jood Al Aswad.

What do the Student Representatives do?
Student Representatives serve as voices for student needs in the Society and play leading roles in student activities including organizing student events at the Geological Society of America Conference. Student Representatives are further encouraged to develop and lead new student initiatives. In this role, students gain knowledge of the inner-workings of an international organization and experience in professional service.

Congratulations to our 2021 slate of distinguished Paleontology Society Fellows!

As Editor in Chief of the Paleontological Society’s Book/Journal Elements of Paleontology, I wanted to draw your attention to two recently published articles that highlight the breadth of Elements as well as highlight some of the publishing capabilities of the series.  Elements is more than just a series for the Paleontological Society Short Course Notes.  It publishes longer articles on a variety of paleontological topics including education and outreach in paleontology, stratigraphy, taxonomy and paleontological methods and techniques, to name a few.  As always, we are looking for content.  Feel free to contact me concerning ideas for new elements and edited volumes. 

The Stratigraphic Paleobiology of Nonmarine Systems by Steven Holland, University of Georgia; Katharine M. Loughney, University of Michigan 

This paper reviews issues surrounding the interplay of sequence stratigraphy and the fossil record in terrestrial settings 

The Paleontological Society Ethics Committee is pleased to present its second annual report to Society members about its activities and investigations conducted in association with the PS Policy on Non-Discrimination and Member Code of Conduct.

Development of a Reciprocity Agreement with GSA

Mary Anning Rocks Initiative

Virtual Policy Internship: Wrap Up

(This following is a report from Lyndsey Farrar and Stephanie Plaza-Torres, Paleontological Society / AGI Policy Interns)