In March 2021, evolutionary biologist and ecologist Professor Barry Sinervo at University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) passed away at the age of 60, after a brave struggle with cancer (Fig. 1). Barry is mourned by his wife of 32 years Jeanie Vogelzang, his son Ari Sinervo, and other family members. His premature death has also caused much sorrow among his departmental colleagues at UCSC, scientific collaborators around the world, and former students and postdocs, including the authors of the current piece. Here, we summarize Barry's scientific achievements, discuss his legacy, and provide some personal memories of our interactions with him when carrying out research in his laboratory. Those of us writing this article are former postdocs and PhD students who all spent considerable time in Barry's laboratory, and we wish to share some of the intellectual excitement we experienced during these formative years of our academic careers. Together, our team covers a large time span of Barry's faculty career, and the authors of this piece include Barry's first PhD student (R.C.), his first European postdoc (E.I.S), his last PhD student (P.B.) as well as his co-workers, students, and laboratory members in between these periods (A.M.A., L.L., and S.C.M.), from 1997 and onwards.