Award Announcements

Abstract

I am excited to present this year’s Robert K. Johnson Award for Excellence in Service to the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. This year’s Johnson Award committee members include Eric Hilton and Michael Douglas. The award honors Bob Johnson, who provided incredible service to the ASIH during his career until his death in 2000. Societies like the ASIH rely on the selfless service of our members. The Johnson Award is awarded to either an ichthyologist or a herpetologist in alternate years. This year’s award will be presented to a herpetologist. This year’s Johnson Award winner was unanimously selected by the committee for this recognition. Notably, the winner is still ‘‘mid-career’’ but has already accrued a service record that is worthy of recognition with this award. Providing such service to the ASIH while maintaining an excellent record of teaching, curating a collection, gaining funding and publishing in their field, and mentoring students is a model for the rest of us in the societies meeting at the JMIH. The awardee for 2019 has been active in ASIH since the 1990s when they were on the Committee for Graduate Student Participation and organized the Graduate Student Workshop, while also winning the ASIH Stoye Award for best student paper not once, but twice. Since then, the awardee has maintained continual presence on various committees for ASIH, including the JMIH Resolutions Committee, the Equal Participation Committee, and committees for the Johnson Award, the Fitch Award, and the Copeia Best Papers in Herpetology Award. Highlighting their commitment to the student members of the ASIH, the awardee has been a judge for the Stoye Awards, has chaired the Stoye and Storer award committees, has served on the Gaige Award committee, and co-organizes the Graduate Student–Professionals Speed-Networking Workshop. The awardee has also provided significant service to our Society’s publication by serving on the Copeia Review Implementation Committee, the Copeia Publications Policy Committee, and as the Copeia Book Review Editor for Herpetology. The awardee has been a central member of ASIH governance by serving two terms on the Board of Governors, as Co-Chair of the Long-Range Planning Committee branch of Executive Committee, and was on the ad hoc Committee for JMIH Code of Conduct. Our 2019 Robert K. Johnson awardee is Robert E. Espinoza.