The Western Evolutionary Biology Biologist of the Year Prize, or Webby, is awarded by NERE, with UCLA Associate Director Jay Phelan chairing the award committee. The Prize is to be awarded annually to an individual from the west of North America (including western Canada and Mexico) who has contributed significantly to the scientific study of biological evolution.

Jay Phelan will be accepting nominations for this award at jay@ucla.edu until March 31st. All individuals nominated for this award must be willing to attend and speak at the WEB meeting in the year that they receive the award. Current Directors of NERE, members of its advisory board, and University of California officials that supervise NERE are not eligible for this award. The prize-winner will be informed during the first week of May, but the announcement will be made at the WEB meeting on May 25th.

"My work falls into four general areas: (1) Origin of major evolutionary adaptations. (2) The beginning of the "Age of Dinosaurs." Although I work generally on Mesozoic vertebrate paleontology, I am most interested in the changes in the terrestrial vertebrate fauna that took place around the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. (3) Systematics, functional morphology, and flight of pterosaurs. (4) Histology and constructional morphology of the bones of extinct reptiles. Our histology work is in conjunction with other researchers in California, Montana, and France. "

- Kevin Padian