Conference: Physical Oceanography Dissertations Symposium (PODS) XIII & XIV and DIssertations Symposium in Chemical Oceanography (DISCO) XXIX & XXX

This grant funds organizational and logistical support for DISCO XXIX and PODS XIII in October 2024 and DISCO XXX and PODS XIV in October 2026. These symposia will produce a cohort group of early career professionals in the field of geochemistry and physical oceanography, initiating collegial relationships that will benefit the research performed by the participants at their employing institutions, and will enable them to expand the narrow focus of their research, share their experiences, and facilitate collaborative ventures.

In addition, the cross-disciplinary contacts arising from the combination of the DISCO and PODS meetings will foster future inter-disciplinary understanding and collaborations, benefiting their employing institutions. Thus, the participants will be uniquely situated to take advantage of networking between individuals and groups, which is of great importance to foster advances in our scientific knowledge and preparedness to meet upcoming environmental challenges.

PODS and DISCO attendees are potential future leaders in their field, and as such, even at this early stage in their careers, have knowledge that can benefit undergraduate students. To extend this beyond the University of Hawai‘i undergraduate students recruited to help with logistics during the meeting, participants at the 2024 and 2026 meetings will invited to be interviewed by the attending undergraduate students.

These interviews will be turned into a 3 to 4-minute video that will be broadly distributed to institutions, including those that do not have graduate programs in oceanography, as well as organizations such as SACNAS and Black in Marine Science, that support under-represented groups. As the videos will have a short description of where the interviews took place, these videos will also provide a mechanism for increasing the awareness of PODS and DISCO beyond the traditional oceanography institutes.

These symposia are for individuals within one year of attaining their PhD and who are seeking a career in academia or research laboratories – thus creating a cohort of early-career researchers. An applicant pool will be developed for the meetings from a broad announcement to chemical and physical oceanographers at academic and research institutions in the US and other countries.

From this pool, program managers at the federal agencies supporting these events will select invitees. Each meeting will consist of a series of sessions grouped by research subject area, participant -led discussion periods, as well as presentations to the combined group by, and discussions with, guest speakers (1 from PODS and 1 from DISCO) and agency personnel explaining funding mechanisms and strategies.

The newly hired University of Hawai‘i School of Ocean Earth Science and Technology DEI Director will give a presentation on issues faced by early career researchers. Participants will form breakout groups to discuss and report on current issues associated with developing careers in research. Formal and informal joint DISCO and PODS activities broaden the disciplinary expertise of the participants, promote future collaborations, and to make connections between their research and the education of future generations of scientists.

The NSF funds will cover meeting venue rentals and catering, abstract-agenda preparation and dissemination, outreach video compilation, as well as participant support-related costs of air travel, hotel accommodation, and per diem for meals that are not provided as part of the symposia.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.