Gina Baucom

@gbaucom

UMich professor who studies resistance and persistence (in plants)

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Gina Baucom@gbaucom· 25d

Congrats to Grace Zhang who gave a fantastic defense seminar this week! Shown here presenting and with the lab at the after celebration!

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· 26d

oregon trail meme that says you have died of cyclosporiasis or no wait i mean death air or both whatever

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Jul 8

Happy-sad to see another student on the path to graduation!

Dissertation defense announcement for Grace Zhang, UMich EEB
Eco-evolutionary dynamics of plant herbicide response in agrochemical environments
July 14, 2026, 1pm

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Jun 4

Write to your members of Congress. Congressional attention to comment volume and constituent concern can prompt legislative scrutiny or appropriations riders. A brief email to your House member and both Senators takes five minutes and adds a different layer of pressure. Do this ASAP!

Find your representatives

Tell your networks. Share this email and these resources with colleagues, family, and friends. Non-scientists can comment too, and a comment from a patient, a student, a farmer, or a parent who benefits from federally funded research is exactly the kind of public voice this process is designed to hear. The broader and more diverse the opposition, the harder it is to ignore.
The comment deadline is July 13, 2026. Please act this week, and please share widely.

Science has always advanced through open inquiry, expert judgment, and the freedom to follow the evidence. The SSE community has built careers and a field on those principles. This is a moment to defend them — together.

With gratitude,

Regina Baucom
Society for the Study of Evolution

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Jun 4

What we are asking you to do — all four of these count!
Submit your personalized individual comment at regulations.gov. (For explicit guidance on submitting a comment, see What We Need to Do Next). This is the most powerful thing you can do. A comment written in your own words carries far more legal weight than any form letter. Describe your specific research, your grants, your collaborators, and how these provisions would concretely harm your work. Three paragraphs in plain language is enough. OMB can dismiss 10,000 identical comments as one; they cannot dismiss 10,000 unique ones. Note that OMB must respond to each letter, meaning that a healthy response is important! The due date for individual comments is July 13, 2026.

Submit your comment

Sign one or both SSE organizational comment letters.
Below are links to read the letters and add your name via Google forms. Review both and sign whichever reflects your views, or sign both. Your signature demonstrates the scale of scientific community opposition and ensures OMB cannot dismiss our concerns as isolated. You must be an SSE member to sign. You do not need to be based in the US. We ask that you sign by June 15, 2026.

Read Letter A and Sign on to Letter A
This letter addresses the operational and scientific infrastructure provisions.

Read Letter B and Sign on to Letter B
This letter addresses provisions that restrict who can conduct science and what questions they can ask.

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Jun 4

What SSE is doing
SSE is submitting two formal organizational comment letters demanding withdrawal of the harmful provisions. We split our comments deliberately — one letter addresses the operational and scientific infrastructure provisions, and the other addresses provisions that restrict who can conduct science and what questions they can ask. This ensures OMB must process them as distinct submissions and respond to each set of arguments separately on the record.

Both letters will carry member signatures, and yours matters. The notice-and-comment process is one of the few places where scientists have a legally guaranteed right to be heard. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, OMB must read and respond to every substantive comment before finalizing this rule. Volume matters, as does substance. The more individual scientists and professionals who stand behind our submissions, the harder it is for OMB to treat our objections as a fringe view.

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Jun 4

What is being proposed and why it matters to you
The proposed rule would, among other things:

Replace peer review with political review. Senior political appointees would be required to personally approve every discretionary grant, with explicit instructions not to defer to peer reviewers. The merit-based system built on Vannevar Bush's postwar framework — the one that produced mRNA vaccines, GPS, and the internet — would be reduced to advisory status.
Make publication costs unallowable by default, including article processing charges and open-access fees. This directly contradicts the 2022 federal open-access mandate, creating an impossible compliance bind for every federally funded researcher who tries to publish their work.
Restrict conference attendance to meetings pre-approved and written into the award at the time of funding, often years before the relevant science occurs.
Prohibit professional society memberships and journal subscriptions without prior written agency approval.
Allow termination of active grants at any time, for any reason deemed inconsistent with "agency priorities or the national interest," with no finding of misconduct required.
Extend restrictions on international collaboration government-wide, threatening the multinational partnerships that are foundational to modern evolutionary biology.

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Jun 4

Member action is needed. Please read the email, review the proposed SSE response, and consider signing on before the June 15 deadline. **Importantly, submit your individualized comment to OMB by July 13!** Screenshots of the full message below. ⬇️

Dear SSE Community,

I hope this message finds you well, wherever the new season has taken you. I'm writing with news that requires our community's immediate attention and action.

On May 29, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published a proposed rule — the largest overhaul of federal grant regulations since 2013 — that would fundamentally restructure how scientific research is funded in the United States. The comment deadline is July 13, 2026. That gives us six weeks, and we need every one of them.

Read the proposed rule.

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· May 15

Head's up SSE members: Virtual Evolution is next week! Join us for the SSE Presidential Symposium on May 21 for talks from SSE leaders and past presidents on sustaining research, supporting trainees, navigating funding uncertainty, and strengthening evolutionary biology. Pls RT!

SSE Presidential Symposium – Navigating Uncertainty: Individual Resilience and Collective Action in Evolutionary Biology
May 21, 9:15 AM - 12:30 PM
This year’s SSE Presidential Symposium will consist of two linked sessions designed to address the current climate of uncertainty surrounding federal funding and its implications for evolutionary biology. Together, these sessions are designed to move from personal grounding to community-level strategy, offering both immediate support and longer-term vision.

Part 1: Recommendations for the Community
Lightning Talks from Past SSE Presidents and Leaders in the Field
May 21, 9:15 AM - 10:30 AM EDT

This session will feature past SSE Presidents and leaders in the field, each giving a 5-minute lightning talk offering concrete, actionable ideas for maintaining research programs, supporting trainees, and strengthening the field during periods of funding constraint. The emphasis will be on practical recommendations at multiple scales—individual researchers, departments, universities, the society, and the field as a whole. There will be a 30-minute Q&A following the talks.

Prothama Manna
Postdoctoral Fellow at Clemson University, SSE GSAC Chair
“What Trainees Need in Uncertain Times: Paths to Resilient Science”

Mohamed Noor
Executive Vice Provost and Professor of Biology at Duke University, 2014 SSE President and former Evolution Editor-in-Chief
“How to ask for help in uncertain times”

Ruth Shaw
Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior at the University of Minnesota, 2020 SSE President and former Evolution Editor-in-Chief
“Realigning scholarly evaluation to support scientists' agency”

Joseph Graves
MacKenzie Scott Endowed Professor of Biology at NC Agricultural and Technical State University
“What Departments Can/Must Do to Support Junior Faculty in an Anti-Science Climate”

Scott Edwards
Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Curator of Ornithology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard Universit…

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Apr 18

👋 👋 SSE members, I hope you'll join me May 21 for the virtual SSE Presidential Symposium: Navigating Uncertainty: Individual Resilience and Collective Action in Evolutionary Biology Pls RT to help get the word out!

NAVIGATING UNCERTAINTY Individual Resilience and Collective Action in Evolutionary Biology
LIGHTNING TALKS: 9:15 - 10:30 AM EDT

Focus on the collective: what can our community do in a time of uncertainty?

PROTHAMA MANNA, CLEMSON UNIV.
MOHAMED NOOR, DUKE UNIVERSITY
RUTH SHAW, UNIV. OF MINNESOTA JOSEPH GRAVES, NC A&T STATE UNIV.
SCOTT EDWARDS, HARVARD UNIV.
EMILY JOSEPHS, MICHIGAN STATE UNIV.
ALISON DAVIS RABOSKY, UNIV. OF MICHIGAN

WORKSHOP & BREAKOUTS: 11 - 12:30 PM EDT
Focus on the individual: how scientists can respond constructively, creatively, and sustainably in the face of instability
NELIA VIVEIROS, UNIV. OF COLORADO ANSCHUTZ MEDICAL CAMPUS

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Apr 10

Wait, wasn't this meeting JUST in Cleveland?!? It was! In 2022. We're headed back as a knock-on consequence of the pandemic. In 2027+ we'll be at locations *not* affected by past pandemic cancellations! See clip of the SSE newsletter for more info.

The first meeting in Cleveland was originally scheduled for June 2020. In March 2020, when the SSE Council voted to cancel the June 2020 meeting due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Joint Meeting Committee began negotiations with the Cleveland conference center and hotels. To avoid significant cancellation fees, SSE, ASN, and SSB agreed to reschedule the Cleveland meeting to 2022 and to return within four years. Because the societies do not gain revenue from the meeting, which is budgeted to break even each year, large cancellation fees would have meant a significant loss to the society’s operating budget in a time of already great uncertainty.

Cancelling the 2020 meeting and subsequently shifting the 2021 meeting to virtual-only—also as a result of the pandemic—had several knock-on effects: The 2021 meeting, originally scheduled for Albuquerque, NM was rescheduled for 2023. The 2024 joint meeting with ESEB was held in Montreal as planned. The 2022 meeting scheduled for Athens, GA was rescheduled for 2025, and 2026 was marked as the year to return to Cleveland, as agreed when the 2020 meeting was canceled.

The Joint Meeting Committee and meeting organizers make suggestions for meeting locations based on safety, cost, feasibility, access, and appeal, with input from society members via such channels as the meeting location survey conducted in 2023. These suggestions are then discussed and voted on by the SSE, ASN, and SSB Councils. Read more about how locations are chosen. We welcome feedback for future locations! Contact us, or apply to be an Assistant Meeting Organizer to get more involved!

The 2027 in-person Evolution meeting is planned for San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the 2028 in-person meeting for Tacoma, WA. We look forward to seeing you at these meetings!

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Feb 17

In 1883, poison oak and poison ivy looked quite different 😂

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Jan 28

New paper from the lab, stemming from @anahvsb.bsky.social's thesis work, captures a weird trait that totally 🤯 my brain When Oxalis stricta plants are exposed to a sublethal dose of the herbicide dicamba, they produce MOAR flowers than controls.

Oxalis is a little cute plant that you've probably stepped on

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Dec 29

Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, or Alice In Chains. Surprising zero people, my choice

The cover to Sonic Youth's best album of the 90's, dirty

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Dec 23

H. matronalis is an invasive weed famous for its floral color variation. But this species also shows striking variation in flower size and shape

Images of Hesperis matronalis individuals and a map showing sampling locations from the United States and Canada in 2023. A-D) Images of representative white, pale, pink, and purple flowering individuals, respectively. E) A map showing the approximate locations of each sampling site indicating the proportion of individuals with white, pale, pink, or purple flowers, based on a visual assessment of a random subset of individuals within each population. A corresponding map with precise locations and population names is provided as Figure S1. Detailed population characteristics are available in Table S1.

Line drawings by John Megahan (University of Michigan) illustrating the range of variation in floral size and petal width observed in Hesperis matronalis. Drawings were based on photographs of flowers collected from natural populations along both the Midwest and East transects. Variation is shown for overall flower size as well as petal width, which spans from broad and rounded to narrow and dissected morphologies. Scale bar = 1 cm.

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Nov 18

Psyched to visit Utah State's Ecology Center this week! I haven't been to Logan before so this is a special treat.

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Nov 8

This front page

Headlines at the NYTimes show just how bonkers things are. "Judge Blocks National Gueard from Portland, Ore, Permanently" "Immigation Agents Arrest Man in LA Raid and Drive Off With His Toddler" and the kicker "President Appeals to Supreme Court After Losing Bid to Curtail Food Stamp Aid"

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Oct 18

Strong #NoKings showing in Chelsea, MI

A bunch of normal everyday Americans protesting at a NoKings rally

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Jun 24

Last lab presentation today! Grace Zhang will be talking about her chapter 2 work examining the context dependency of tolerance in common morning glory. Put it on your list, Grace always gives a great talk!

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Jun 24

I neglected my advisorly promotional duties yesterday but Sasha Bishop gave a fantastic talk on her resurrection biology dissertation chapter from the lab and @emmafoster2.bsky.social presented a poster on useful experimental designs for studying global change

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Jun 22

& lab friend @joannarifkin.bsky.social is talking about their work in Mimulus at 11:15am in Olympia 2

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Jun 22

Come see our Sunday lab #Evol2025 talks! I'm talking about our work in Dame's Rocket today at 9:45am in Olympia 2 @susielusardi.bsky.social is giving a poster on disease clustering in Dame's Rocket at 6pm in Grand Hall 7

A population of Dame's Rocket that is polymorphic for flower color

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· Jun 21

Hey #Evol2025 Interested in developing tools to assess novel trait variation in a wild organism? Come check out @inam-j.bsky.social's work using fast neutron mutagenesis in the common morning glory, today at 12:15pm in Olympia 1

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· May 25

So unfair!

Two cats beg to go outside while a dog is allowed to bask in the sun on the front porch

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· May 7

#WithoutNSF we would not have the $$ to develop gene modification in close relatives of sweetpotato. Imp facts about sweetpotato: *7th most important food crop *major source of vitamin A *crucial to North Carolina’s economy, responsible for 100’s of millions dollars per year #SupportNSF #SaveNSF

An image highlighting the variation in leaf shape in sweetpotato

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· May 7

#WithoutNSF we would not have the tools to generate long term study populations or manipulate genes in Ipomoea, the morning glories. This group includes beautiful garden plants, noxious weeds (I. purpurea, image attached), and the very important Ipomoea batatas – sweetpotato! #SupportNSF #SaveNSF

A tangle of Ipomoea purpurea (common or tall morning glory) at the edge of a soy field.

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· May 7

#WithoutNSF we couldn't have studied how the use of dicamba, an herbicide that ‘drifts’ after application, alters plant-pollinator interactions & pollinator abundance. This is crucial given rapid pollinator decline. Do you like coffee? Chocolate? Apples? We need pollinators #SupportNSF #SaveNSF

Pollinator doing its thing on a bright pink flower

A pollinator visiting a black eyed susan

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· May 6

Below you will find a link to the media tool that we recommend using, and scripts to both specific issues that need coverage as well as general scripts in support of the NSF. The media tool includes general scripts for you to modify and message your representatives and senators via either phone calls or emails, text to help you message out on social media, talking points, and advice on writing up your story.

Please help us make this Week of Action for the NSF successful. Thank you for taking the time to do this – if we work together in concert we can be heard!

Best wishes,

Carol Boggs, SSE President
Gina Baucom, SSE President Elect

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· May 6

We need time-sensitive, specific messaging about 1) grant terminations, 2) budget reductions, and 3) the change in indirect rates to 15%. We also need to communicate more generally about the importance of NSF funding.

We are including an easy to use media tool to help with each of the above steps. From the advice we are receiving from congressional aides, it is clear that we need you to share your stories both widely and loudly – how the federal cuts and grant terminations are affecting you specifically, what NSF has meant for your career, and what the lack of funding will mean for your research/teaching. To that end, we have included guidance on how to craft a short write-up hitting on these themes. Please take the time to do this – it cannot be overstated how important it is to message your story.

Gina Baucom@gbaucom· May 6