To the FWGNA group,

I am pleased to report that Dr. Rob Guralnick has agreed to join the Editorial Committee for our project.  He succeeds Bob Hershler, who resigned as the Pacific regional coordinator last month, citing other commitments.

Rob is a 1999 Ph.D. from Dave Lindberg's lab at Berkeley.  He is so skilled, both with molecules and with computers, that he went straight from grad school to win Shi-Kuei Wu's old post at the University of Colorado Museum.  (And he has just been awarded a $730k NSF grant for a database initiative!)  See his web page, quite impressive although still under construction:
http://invertoffice1.colorado.edu/ [Link removed 09/06]
(The buccal mass animations available from his "Lab Data" page are cool!)

It occurs to me that quite a few of you have joined this list since the EdComm was established 8/99, and may not know who these folks are or what they do.  The EdComm is a group of eight malacologists, organized regionally, who provide oversight and guidance to the FWGNA project.  They served as "Principal Investigators" for the NSF proposals we submitted in 1999 and 2000, and will edit the final products (both print and electronic) when we get to that stage (still quite a few years down the road.)  Names and contact info follow:

Steve Ahlstedt  - Eastern Mississippi.
USGS Knoxville, ahlstedt@usgs.gov

Ken Brown  - Western Mississippi.
Louisiana State University, kmbrown@lsu.edu

Rob Dillon  - Southern Atlantic.
College of Charleston, dillonr@cofc.edu

Rob Guralnick - Pacific.
University of Colorado, guralnic@spot.colorado.edu

Paul Johnson  - Eastern Gulf.
Southeast Aquatic Research Institute,  pdj@sari.org

Eileen Jokinen  - Great Lakes.
Sault Ste. Marie, ejokinen@sault.com

Bob McMahon  - Western Gulf.
U. Texas Arlington,  r.mcmahon@uta.edu

Dave Strayer  - Northern Atlantic.
Inst. Ecosystem Studies, strayerd@ecostudies.org

Rob Guralnick brings a lot of strengths to a project already quite obviously bulging with scientific talent.  Join me in welcoming him to the Edcomm.

And keep in touch!
Rob