Theodosius Dobzhansky, one the most influential geneticists of his time, famously quipped that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”. In this age of seemingly-daily molecular and computational revolutions, this statement has never proven to be truer.
Ecological and evolutionary thinking permeates all life sciences: everything from the study of stem cells to the adaptive immune system, from ecological interactions between individuals to the dynamics of cancer metastasis, from adaptive phenotypes to the genetic causes and consequences of variation. The Center for Ecological and Evolutionary Dynamics (CEED), emphasizes these processes over study systems.
USC has world-leading researchers in the ecological and evolutionary sciences. However, these researchers can be spread across sections, departments, schools, and campuses. We argue that this diffusion of evolutionary thinking works to our advantage. As we are not constrained by traditional disciplinary boundaries, there is tremendous opportunity for USC to harness our individual strengths and bring together people with very different expertise, to emerge as a sum greater than our parts.
CEED is first and foremost a community. Our community is open to all – faculty, postdocs, graduate students, undergraduate students, staff, technicians… anyone. For the past three years, we have run a bi-weekly seminar series inviting mostly local scientists to come and teach us what their research is about. This seminar is followed by a social hour where we all interact with each other and nurture new intellectual interactions. Beginning Fall 2024, we will be giving out seed grants to collaborating PI’s to facilitate the development of novel research directions which might not have come to fruition without engagement across disciplines.