The AOS Council is pleased to announce a new annual publication prize, the Wesley Lanyon Award. This new award will recognize the early-career ornithologist who authors the best synthesis/review paper on avian science to be published as an open-access article in either AOS journal (The Auk or The Condor). Members of AOS who are within or up to the end of their third year post-PhD are invited to compete for the award. Reviews encompassing basic and/or applied research subdisciplines in ornithology are eligible.
The Wesley Lanyon Award will provide a $1,000 honorarium to the winner, as well as a $1,000 travel stipend and gratis registration to attend the AOS annual conference, where the winner will organize a symposium on their winning review topic. Wesley “Bud” Lanyon served as the 37th President of the American Ornithologists’ Union. Bud was a steadfast and committed leader in the field of ornithology and was a respected mentor of many generations of scientists. He was particularly keen to support researchers in the midst of writing their dissertations and those who had recently completed their PhDs. Because they possess a thorough understanding of the current literature, he recognized, they are poised to provide novel insights into classic areas of ornithology and to elucidate emerging fields of study.
The winner of the inaugural award will be announced in the spring of 2020, and the award will be presented at our 2020 annual meeting in Puerto Rico. The first step in competing for the award will be to submit an abstract for the proposed review by August 30, 2019; the journal Editors-in-Chief and the four Deputy Editors will review the abstracts and invite up to six competitors to submit their manuscripts to the appropriate journal.
“This award competition will highlight the excellent research of early career ornithologists, produce timely and valuable scholarship for our readers, and increase the scientific impact of AOS journals,” says Scott Sillett, Editor-in-Chief of The Auk. AOS editors are looking forward to reviewing your submissions, so get writing!