Dubbed "Rick Fest," evolutionary biologists from around the country descended on Ithaca July 22-23 to take part in a symposium in honor of Richard Harrison, Cornell professor and former chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

The speakers, more than 20 of them, were all alumni of Harrison's laboratory. The symposium, "Genetics and the Origin of Species: The Continuing Synthesis," was attended by more than 100 people in Cornell's Biotechnology building and focused on research that explores the genetics behind how new species are formed.

Harrison, whose expertise covers entomology, evolution and genetics, received his B.A. from Harvard (1967) and his Ph.D. from Cornell (1977). After working at Yale from 1977 to 1986, Harrison joined Cornell's faculty. His lab concentrates on understanding the origin of species and the evolution of barriers to gene exchange, among other things.

"Rick Harrison's lab has been at the center of some of the best work done [in the field of evolutionary biology] in the last 30 years," said Daniel Howard, professor of biology and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado Denver. "The symposium is a celebration of all that work over the years."

"What was unusual about my lab was I strongly encouraged students to bring their own projects to the lab," said Harrison. "They brought organisms I knew very little about at first. I am a better evolutionary biologist from seeing the world through a lot of different organisms."

The symposium lectures will be published in the journal Genetica.