Colorado mountains
From Long-Term Data to Understanding: Toward a Predictive Ecology
2015 LTER ASM Estes Park, CO - August 30 - September 2, 2015
 

LTER Graduate Student Symposium

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Graduate student day plan
One of the core themes of the LTER network to develop and discover concepts of natural systems that contributes to the advancement of the health, productivity, and welfare of the global environment, thereby advancing human well-being. To develop such insights requires long-term and broad-scale research to understand key environmental phenomena. The most effective method for identifying these global scale phenomena is to conduct cross-ecosystem scale research. In this proposed graduate student symposium, we aim to develop a platform for idea sharing that will hopefully facilitate cross- LTER research at the graduate student level. We propose the graduate student symposium be separated up into two sessions which are discussed in detail below:

Sunday Morning
1) Summary talks highlighting core questions and key findings from representative LTER sites
For the morning of the graduate student symposium, we propose to convey key information about each LTER site and current graduate student research using an ESA ignite style approach. The purpose of these talks will be to tell a brief story of site's past research that has led to their current research questions. Coupled with this brief site overview, student representatives will highlight key finds and new work from students in attendance at the LTER ASM. Talks will be limited 8-10 minutes with data slides and figures being used sparingly. The focus of this ignite session will be more on current graduate student work, therefore, the brief summary of respective LTER site history should just be enough to inform the audience of the general research theme of the site



Expected outcomes
We expect that using this ignite framework, will provide graduate students with an overall understanding of LTER site research, as well as specific projects graduate students are working on in attendance, that should create a good platform for facilitating idea sharing. To ensure that students at different motivational and academic levels have a chance to produce a tangible product, we will inform attending students of other potentially positive professional and network products that students can engage in and complete. Our expected outcomes are conceptualized in the figure below.

Figure 1) Conceptualization of expected outcomes. The size of the area in each of the box of the pyramid corresponds to the proportion of students that likely participates in or completes each activity.


Hopefully, every student in attendance will meet and interact with students from other LTER sites that may lead to long-term professional relationships in the future. A smaller proportion of the students in attendance may work together to develop a "non-academic" product such as a newsletter article for the LTER network news or a blog post. Fewer students may work together to produce multiple "non-academic" products or potentially start a cross LTER site, social media outlet, such as a twitter account, blog, or Facebook page, that may highlight a particular LTER research theme. Last, even fewer students may pursue and complete an academic product, such as a special session at a national conference, collaborative cross-site proposal or a collaborative paper.

Speaker list and agenda:

Time  Speaker  SITE General grouping
8:30-8:50 Ross Boucek LNO  
8:50 Sam Zipper NTL Aquatic
9:00 Christie York SBC Aquatic
9:10 Ali Freibott CCE Aquatic
9:20 Stella Swanson MCR Aquatic
9:30 Shelby Servais FCE Estuary
9:40 Fan Li GCE Estuary
9:50 Elizabeth Murphy VCR Estuary
10:00 BREAK    
10:10 BREAK    
10:20 Dorothy Borowy BES Urban
10:30 Kate Glanville KBS Urban
10:40 Amalia Handler CAP Urban
10:50 Lau Gherardi JRN Desert/grassland
11:00 Ellen Welti KNZ Desert/grassland
11:10 Siddarth Iyengar CDR Desert/grassland
11:20 BREAK    
11:30 BREAK    
11:40 Ashley Asmus ARC Cold
11:50 John Knowles NWT Cold
12:00 Ashley Shaw MCM Cold
12:10 Alix Conway BNZ Cold
12:20 LUNCH    
1:20 LUNCH    
1:30 Rebecca Sanders-Demmot HBR Forest
1:40 Lauren Alteio HFR Forest
1:50 Charles Scaife CWT Forest
2:00 Matt Kaylor AND Forest
2:10 Aaron Hogan LUQ Forest
2:20 BREAK    
2:30 BREAK    
2:40-3:40 Breakout sessions    
3:40-4:00 BREAK    
4:00-5:00 Closing reports from breakout sessions  

 

 

Working groups

 

Room Name
RM 1 Disturbance and community ecology in the LTER 
RM 2 Drought resistance and resilience: Definitions, drivers, and responses across LTER ecosystems
RM 3 Carbon Cycling and Ecosystem Ecology
RM 4  Aquatic ecosystems
RM 5 Building a better student/research community
RM 6 Combining, theory, modelling and experimental data
RM 7 Social sciences in the LTER
RM 8 Does a diverse ecological community promote ecological sustainability: promoting diversity and inclusion in ecology?

 

Organizer: 
Ross Boucek
Co-organizer(s): 
Siddharth Iyengar
Number of 2 hour sessions requested: 
2
Equipment requested: 
Projector and large screen. Microphone at podium with 2 mobile microphones.
Additional Comments: 
The main meeting will be held in the auditorium with breakouts as needed in the 4 rooms in the back of the auditorium.
Working Group Materials
Related materials: 
Room Assignment: 
Ruesch Auditorium -(Capacity 800)