USA (University of South Alabama, That Is)

This week, the lab is at the University of South Alabama to present our research at the Gulf Estuarine Research Society's biennial meeting. This meeting features researchers from across the gulf coast, and is a time for science sharing, networking, discussions on timely topics (like disaster planning), and represents the first formal presentations for a lot of young scientists in the gulf coast area. I have the honor of judging student presentations again, and I really enjoy seeing the way students are approaching their obstacles and their willingness to ask for help in front of their peers. Our first night here, we went and played trivia, but did terribly in the end.

Today was a full day of research talks, and Kim and I both presented research, with Adam and David--the graduate students in the lab--presenting tomorrow. Fairhope, the city that this USA campus is in, also hosted a Christmas parade this evening, and I was told that this parade was Mardi Gras lite, though there were floats, beads, candy, and lots of music and cheering. Both Santa and the Grinch were proudly in attendance. 

I think what I've really enjoyed about this conference and Bays and Bayous was the overall conference size. The last conference I went to before starting at USM was ocean sciences, which hosted 6,000 attendees and approximately 4,000 presentations during the program. This meant that attendees were hustling through the conference center to attend talks with little time for travel, especially if talks ran long. At Bays and Bayous and GERS, there are fewer presentations, so I don't need to run to get to interesting talks or to see my peers present.

While these two conferences have been smaller, I will likely be attending one or two medium-sized conferences this upcoming year, which will give me a more well-rounded view of conference culture. Unfortunately, since I'm writing this blog from the conference and on my work computer, I'm unable to upload any photos from today's events, but stay tuned to see what photograph pops up from a new week and new adventure in the lab.