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AGU Fall Meeting: Promoting Discovery in Earth and Space Science
17 November 2011
Every December, scientists from around the world gather in San Francisco to share their research, broaden their knowledge base, and connect with colleagues at AGU’s Fall Meeting. Forty-four years after the first meeting, the event continues to play an essential role in the success of AGU and our science. It is also a major contributing factor to our ability to achieve the goals outlined in the new strategic plan.
Under the Scientific Leadership and Collaboration goal, AGU aspires to become "a leader, collaborator, and sought after partner for scientific innovation, rigor and interdisciplinary focus on global issues". We are building a foundation for this growth with the robust scientific program of the 2011 Fall Meeting—with its more than 6,700 oral presentations and 12,700 poster presentations—which covers groundbreaking research critical to addressing the global challenges we face as a society.
This year's Fall Meeting program also offers a number of sessions, workshops, and other events designed to help prepare our members for active and productive engagement with a variety of audiences, including the news media and policy makers, and to share our science with the public, as outlined in our Science and Societygoal. For example, we are hosting skill-building workshops on communicating with Congress and with the media—including a special session on communicating climate science—and using social media and video to disseminate our science, as well as sessions on such topics as Earth Science Communication in a Changing Media Landscape and Shapers of the Debate: What Happens to Science in the Hands of Stakeholders. We are also hosting a lecture by astronaut and AGU member, Andrew Feustel, which is open to the public, and Exploration Station, a family science event designed to showcase AGU science and allow children and the public to directly interact with scientists.
Additionally, because AGU is committed to being a "diverse and inclusive organization that uses its position to build the global talent pool in Earth and space science"—which is the central main theme of our Talent Pool goal—we offer a wealth of education-related programming at the Fall Meeting. This includes workshops on everything from Effectively Teaching Diverse Students to How to Get an Undergraduate Research Program Started, and career-related programing—like seminars on resume writing and interviewing skills—in the on-site Career Center. We also offer a joint workshop with the National Earth Science Teachers Association for middle and secondary school teachers, which includes talks by leading research scientists and examples of hands-on activities. And, AGU offers the Bright Students Training as Research Scientists (BrightStaRS) program, where high school students are offered the opportunity to present their own research results to the scientific community in a dedicated poster session.
Because we strive for Organizational Excellence, AGU has also added a number of new initiatives and programs in an effort to make the Fall Meeting even more beneficial and enjoyable for you. For example, we recently launched an ePoster function that gives authors the option to display an electronic version of their poster on the Fall Meeting Web site, thus providing even better access to this important content. We will also be offering a mobile app that allows attendees to access key information about various events and activities—including an exciting treasure hunt!—from their mobile devices, as well as an optional SMS text messaging service for updates and reminders (more information on these two features will coming soon).
This is only a small slice of the amazing programming and opportunities that we will be offering this year, so as you work to finalize your itinerary I encourage you to visit the Fall Meeting Web site and learn more. We are promoting discovery in Earth and space science for the benefit of humanity, and your participation in the Fall Meeting is a big part of our success.
I look forward to seeing you all in San Francisco!