This award will partially support a one-day, three-part professional development series for early career geoscientists during the 2011 Fall American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco, CA. The Fall AGU meeting, one of the largest meetings for geoscientists, is an excellent opportunity to engage early career scientists, such as senior graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, new faculty and research scientists. The goal is to provide a venue for the development of professional skills that will contribute to the continued success of these early career scientists. The three workshops include: 1) how to navigate the National Science Foundation, 2) shaping the future of postdoctoral fellowship programs, and 3) networking as a professional skill. For early career researchers in particular it is important to learn how to ask the right questions and to learn what programs are appropriate for their research ideas to get funded. This workshop will be open to all AGU Fall Meeting attendees, but will be particularly helpful to early-career to mid-career participants.
We proposed a one-day, three-part professional development series for early career geoscientists during the 2011 Fall American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco, CA. The Fall AGU meeting is the largest annual gathering of geoscientists from across the world. As such, it was an excellent opportunity to capture a large audience of early career scientists, such as senior graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, new faculty and research scientists. The workshops took place in a single day with agendas planned in such a way as to allow participants to still attend the scientific conference. Our goal was to provide a venue for the development of professional skills that will contribute to the continued success of these early career scientists. The three workshops included: 1) how to navigate the National Science Foundation, 2) shaping the future of postdoctoral fellowship programs, and 3) networking as a professional skill. A total of 130 people representing primarily early career geoscientists attended the workshops. Approximately 50% of the audiences represented minority or typically underrepresented ethnicities in the geosciences; more than half were women. The major outcomes of the workshops provided the participants with skills for preparing and submitting effective proposals to appropriate programs at NSF and skills for networking for career success.
