This message is adapted from an announcement from Landon Marston (CEE), on behalf of the Human-Water Systems seminar series leadership committee.

 

Faculty and students at VT are invited to join a new professional networking and research seminar series centered on human-water systems.

Meetings will be held the third Friday of each month from 1-2 pm EST, with the first meeting occurring on Friday, January 15th, 2021.

To participate – please complete this Google Form to be added you to the informational listserv. You will receive an email in early January with additional details and call-in information. Please share this message with any colleagues you think may be interested in participating.

Each meeting will start with two invited speakers, each giving a 15 minute talk followed by a short Q&A. As the seminar title suggests, all talks will be related to human-water systems. In the remaining twenty minutes, participants will breakout into smaller gatherings (4-10 people) to meet new people (and perhaps a few familiar faces) with a shared interest in human-water systems. There will be designated rooms for graduate students to gather and other rooms dedicated for postgraduate researchers (i.e., postdocs, junior and senior faculty, government scientists, etc.) to meet. The goal is to facilitate regular opportunities for you to make new connections that will hopefully lead to fruitful collaborations on papers and proposals.

Human-water systems are defined very broadly and people from all disciplinary backgrounds are strongly encouraged to attend ‘Human-Water Systems Monthly’. As human-water systems are highly complex, stretching across multiple disciplines, we’d like our audience to reflect this. Diverse participants will also increase the likelihood of collaborations forming that might not be possible in traditional conference settings that are well attended by one discipline but not others.

The void of in-person workshops, conferences, and campus visits has limited opportunities to make new connections, form collaborations, and have serendipitous encounters with colleagues you may only see once a year. Early career researchers are particularly impacted by these lack of opportunities since this is a critical time in one’s career to develop a professional network. While several major conferences have made valiant efforts to mimic the in-person experience, the prolonged conference schedule, odd conference hours, and limited opportunities to make meaningful new contacts has left an opening for regular, focused meetings that provide researchers at all career stages a chance to ‘meet-and-greet’ and also allow early career researchers a stage to present their research.

For now, speakers have been schedule through the spring term (January-April). If interest remains high, the seminar will likely invite additional speakers for the summer and/or fall term. If you would be interested in giving an invited talk, please indicate this when you sign up. At least initially, preference will be given to early career faculty and scientists since these invited presentations are the most meaningful at this stage in their career.