Dear Friends,

The University  of Michigan 's grand history of excellence in ecological, evolutionary and organismal biology entered a new and exciting phase when a new Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology began in 2001 after the dissolution of the Department of Biology. EEB continues to move forward with immense enthusiasm and optimism. We have an excellent faculty, the exceptional resources of the Museum of Zoology , the Herbarium, the Biological Station, the E.S. George Reserve, and the Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum, as well as abundant opportunities for collaboration with colleagues in many other departments and units. And we can draw on the resources of an absolutely extraordinary university.

Even those of you who graduated as recently as the turn of the century will see many new faces in the department.  Between 2001 and 2006, we welcomed 13 new faculty members, representing more than a third of our current roster, as a number of our valued senior colleagues retired. These new colleagues bring exciting research programs on a wide diversity of topics including evolutionary studies of gene duplication (Zhang), coevolution between symbionts using bacteria in fish (Dunlap), population dynamics of infectious diseases (Pascual), biogeochemistry (Nadelhoffer), molecular phylogenies and evolution of plants (Qiu), insect speciation and phylogeography (Knowles), evolution of feeding specializations in snails (Duda), plant phylogeography and molecular ecology (Dick), neotropical floristics and biogeography (Berry), evolution of development (Wittkopp), nonlinear dynamics and stochasticity (King), evolution of social behavior (Tibbetts), insect population dynamics and ecosystem processes (Hunter), dynamics of community assembly (Ostling) and evolutionary theory and bioinformatics (Kondrashov). 

The Museum of Zoology and the Herbarium have long housed outstanding biologists whose extensive knowledge of the diversity and biology of particular groups of organisms has become an even more precious commodity as training in biodiversity has lagged across the United States . The department is firmly committed to working in close cooperation with these two units, as well as the Museum of Paleontology, in keeping such knowledge alive and growing, and using it as a basis for answering a broad range of biological questions in conceptually-engaged research programs. Of the new faculty described above, two (Knowles, Duda) are joint with the UMMZ and two ( Dick , Berry ) are joint with the Herbarium. The Museum  of Zoology and Herbarium enable us to nurture and train scientists with biodiversity expertise as few other universities can, and I believe this is one of the most important roles we can fill. Because of our combined strengths in ecology and in evolutionary history and systematics, we also have the potential to train students at the intersection of these disciplines, again, as almost no other universities can. 

Alumni will recall with pride and some amazement the excellence of Michigan 's graduate students in our field; and I am happy to say that this tradition has remained unbroken. The department continues to attract superb students, and we are delighted that we can support them with a strong five-year package that includes a combination of fellowships, research assistantships and graduate student instructorships. We continue to have student-run seminars and a myriad of discussion groups and journal clubs that foster energetic and enlightening debate on a breadth of topics in ecology and evolutionary biology. We are proud that our graduate students continue to develop more independent research programs than is common at many universities and that our students continue to end up with outstanding postdocs and positions after graduating. In addition, our students consistently receive more than their share of Outstanding GSI Awards.

The undergraduate Biology Program is now run jointly by the Departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and both departments remain committed to providing a broadly-based background in biology to our joint concentrators in biology. Both departments, along with the Departments of Epidemiology ( School of Public Health ) and Microbiology and Immunology ( Medical School ) also run the new undergraduate concentration in microbiology, including microbial diversity, evolution and ecology. EEB is also enthusiastically engaged in teaching and advising undergraduate students in the new interdisciplinary Program in the Environment. And most exciting, our department has just initiated a new concentration and minor in ecology and evolutionary biology. The new concentration has several innovative features, including the requirement that all students engage in some independent research and participate in a capstone senior seminar integrating principles of ecology and evolution in illuminating patterns in nature and environmental problems. 

The perspectives and attitudes that we have long valued at Michigan  remain key to our success: intellectual breadth and collegiality, appreciation of the broad sweep of subject areas in evolutionary biology and ecology, respect for graduate students as our future colleagues, and dedication to teaching undergraduates the "grandeur in this view of life.”

With best wishes,

Deborah Goldberg
Professor and Chair