We are a network of marine scientists, evolutionary biologists, and oceanographers working to develop integrated frameworks for studying adaptation to ocean change. Read this article for more information on how we ran our RCN.

We are grateful to the National Science Foundation for funding our network activities. The Research Coordination Network for Evolution in Changing Seas was funded by NSF-OCE 1764316 from 2019 to 2024.

Anti-Racism Statement

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement

In Memoriam

We are deeply saddened over the loss of our treasured colleague and friend, Dr. Eric Darvish Crandall, in August 2024. Eric was a leader in marine evolutionary genetics who routinely brought computational tools to advancing our understanding of dispersal among diverse marine animals. He was an early adopter of coalescent approaches for evaluating competing scenarios of gene flow and population structure. He is also well known for his contributions to multispecies phylogeography and seascape genetics. In recent years he was particularly interested in how isolation by distance theory could support dispersal distance estimates across multiple species. Eric was deeply committed to making science more diverse, inclusive, and equitable. He worked especially hard to ensure young scientists had seats at impactful scientific tables. Eric was a passionate advocate for building international collaborations throughout the Indo-Pacific Ocean and founded the NSF RCN funded Diversity of the Indo-Pacific Network (DIPnet) to link scientists across the many countries of this vast region. As the leader of DIPnet, he organised a memorable series of workshops teaching population genetics and R-based programming in Indonesia, the Philippines, and South Africa. He prioritized the inclusion of local stakeholders in each of his endeavors and advocated fiercely against parachute science. After joining the faculty at Penn State, Eric became the leader of an NSF INCLUDES Bridge to Ph.D. program that brought underrepresented students from island communities to experience research opportunities at an R-1 university. He was also the faculty advisor for TaMIS (Towards a More Inclusive Science) initiative that provided a safe environment for students, postdocs and faculty to discuss topics that could help catalyze change in educational and research practices on campus.

From Eric’s point of view, making genetic data FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable & reproducible) is as much about equity as the scientific questions driving generation of these data. Eric believed genetic data, which quantify the most fundamental level of biodiversity upon which our planet depends, should be broadly accessible (not just to those with specialized knowledge and infrastructure). As such, he worked assiduously to co-create tools to facilitate archiving of genomic data and associated metadata; most notably, GEOME: the genomic observatories metadatabase; to organise published data into FAIR structures (organising and running innovative hack-a-thon style virtual events, the first iteration during COVID lockdown); and to tirelessly raise the centrality of metadata to achieving conservation goals (even though he regularly remarked, often with a sigh after frustrating conversations, “metadata aren’t sexy” – recognizing much of this work would be easier if they were). Eric was leading the way, and he inspired and empowered us to improve the quality of the data we generate.

To collaborate with Eric was to take a deep dive into thoughtful conversations, where his strong principles, extensive understanding of population genomic theory, and supreme literature recall would underpin gentle suggestions and constructive criticism. He was the colleague that would send you fresh code, share his unpublished notes that solved your pressing problem, or hop on a spontaneous call to dig into the weeds and hash it out. His thoughtful approach to considering the diversity of life history across marine ecosystems always helped ensure the data, theory, and analyses came full circle to teach us about our planet. He also had an admirable ability to build impactful collaborative teams: these teams usually included unconventional players – librarians, cloud computing architects, communication specialists, museum curators, graphic designers – and they were successful because Eric worked to make his collaborators feel included on equal footing. Above all, he was kind, generous, humble, and compassionate.

Eric made us all into better scientists and better human beings. It is fitting and unsurprising that much of his scientific work was in service of outcomes much larger than his own research agenda. A GoFundMe site has been created in Eric’s memory to support the Towards a More Inclusive Science Life Sciences initiative at Penn State.

  • Cynthia Riginos
  • Rachel Toczydlowski
  • Katie Lotterhos
  • Michelle Gaither
  • Libby Liggins
  • John Wares
  • Mónica Medina
  • John Deck
  • Gideon Bradburd