Reflections on ASLO: An oceanography graduate student goes to Hawaii to communicate science
I attended and presented at the ASLO (Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography) conference in Honolulu, HI earlier this year. This is the largest conference I have attended, though it was only moderately sized compared to other conferences in our field. Just over 2000 members attended, with backgrounds and presentations ranging the breadth of marine and fresh water sciences. The conference had an amazing range of speakers and presentations, from some of the most established and accomplished scientists in the field to some of the newest scientists presenting the first work of their careers.
My presentation took the form of a poster that was on display in the main exhibition hall of the convention center. I was expected to be available to talk about my work during one of the many poster-specific sessions that were held twice every day. I prepared my assigned space the day before the conference started with my poster, small copies to provide for anyone who was interested, and my contact information. I presented during the afternoon session of the first day of the conference. The talk I had been listening to went over time, so there were already people gathered around my poster by the time I arrived in the exhibit hall. From then until the next talks began, I presented my research to anyone who cared to stop by, including one of my undergraduate mentors. While I was there to present and receive feedback on my research, the discussions around my poster were very free-form, and often strayed far from my personal studies into speculation or tangential connections to other research. While this wasn’t what I had expected going into the ASLO conference, it was a wonderful opportunity to engage with other scientists who were not in my discipline and who I would not have interacted with under normal circumstances.
Mike Kempnich is a first year graduate student in the Ocean Sciences department at UCSC. He is member of the Sison-Magnus lab where his research focuses on toxic phytoplankton blooms and their microbial communities, and specifically on the interactions between the two.
