Attending a major conference is particularly important for young researchers because it allows them to present their work to an expert audience and gives them the opportunity to make useful contacts. However, SMBE recognizes that travel funds may not be available at this critical time. Postdoctoral researchers and graduate students may apply for travel awards to attend the annual SMBE meeting.
Eligibility
Members of SMBE, who are either graduate students (awarded a primary degree and enrolled full-time for a post-graduate degree – Masters, Doctorate or Higher-Diploma) or postdoctoral researchers are eligible to apply. A candidate for the award must be a member of the Society at the time of application at least a month before the first day of the annual meeting.
Application
Applications are submitted through the abstract submission system for the annual meeting for which the award applies.
The application requires:
- An abstract (250 word max) for your proposed presentation.
- A Curriculum Vitae
Process: The awardees are determined after review of application materials by one or more committees that will include at least one member of SMBE Council. The selection committee pays particular attention to enhancing geographical and gender diversity.
2026 SMBE Young Investigator Travel Award Winners
- Lucija Andjel (Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics of The Czech Academy of Sciences Department of Ecology, Faculty of Science, Charles University) From Sterility to Clonality: Linking Rapid Sex-Chromosome Turnover to Asexual Reproduction in a Vertebrate Hybrid Complex
- Moritz Blumer (University of Cambridge), Genetics of repeated ecotype separation in Malawi cichlid genus Labeotropheus
- Margaret Chi (University Of Washington Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center) Co-option of long terminal repeats mediates endogenous retrovirus dysregulation in cancer
- Nadav Mishol (Department of Molecular Genetics, Weizmann Institute of Science) The Gene Regulatory Evolution of the Human Skeleton
- Saswat Mohanty (Penn State University) Population genetic analysis of G-quadruplexes across the human pangenome
- Markella Moraitou (University of Edinburgh) Ecology and evolution of the mammalian oral microbiome elucidated using museum specimen metagenomics
- Shazia Parveen (National Centre for Biological Sciences) Mutation bias is a key predictor of adaptation rate
- David Peede (Brown University) Coalescent-Based Introgression Inference: Theory, Biases, and Solutions
- Gabriel Preising (Stanford University) Long-read sequencing reveals the genomic architecture of alternative reproductive tactics in swordtail fishes
- Roudin Sarama (Queen Mary University of London) Signals of positive selection on transposable element control genes across structured human populations
- Andrea Soler i Núñez (University of Copenhagen) Rethinking human AMY1 copy number evolution in light of demographic history
- Cedric Tan (University College London) Eco-evolutionary drivers of the emergence of the major wildlife pathogen, Ranavirus
- Nina Vittorelli (Sorbonne Université / Collège De France) Repeated losses of self-fertility shaped heterozygosity and polyploidy in yeast evolution
- Yue Yu (University of British Columbia) Investigating Effects of Inversions and Recombination Modifiers to Ecotypic Differentiation in Wild Sunflowers
- Xueling Yi (Senckenberg Gesellschaft Für Naturforschung) Pervasive and convergent changes in the kynurenine pathway contribute to sugar-diet adaptations in bats
- Olga Rosspopoff (Igbmc) Transposable Element Co-Option Drives Transcription Factor Neofunctionalization
- Henry North (University of Cambridge) Unwanted evolutionary rescue: bidirectional adaptive introgression of pesticide resistance genes between native and invasive Helicoverpa crop pests
- Tom Parée (New York University) Self-fertilization can reverse the selection coefficient on a recombination landscape modifier during experimental evolution
- Christopher Kyriazis (San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance) Using genomics to predict inbreeding depression risk: Case studies in Hawaiian birds
- Pascal Angst (University of Basel) Strong bottlenecks constrain adaptive evolution in a host–parasite metapopulation