In response to the excellent participation in the previous years, the Student Affairs Committee (SAC) will organize a set of activities this year during the InterPore meeting in New Orleans. There will be a career event, a fun interactive game brought by our partners from Perspectivity and a social night out in one (or two, three...) lively bar/club somewhere in the city. These activities are an excellent opportunity to foster future collaborations by giving you the chance to get closer to other students and early career scientists from all over the world. All activities are sponsored by InterPore and its partners so registration is free to the participants. An additional description follows:
Career development event
A common doubt that occurs to many students is what are the possible career pathways to follow after one finishes the PhD. Should I pursue an academic career? Should I search for possibilities in the industry/governmental agencies? What are the pros (and cons) of each career path? How does the life-after-phd feels like? In this event we will have the opportunity to hear from 3 established professionals who have followed very different career paths. The focus is not on their particular scientific/industrial achievements, but more on the important choices they made that took them to where they are now and on what inspired/motivated them to take those choices. After a brief presentation by each participant, the audience will have the opportunity to make questions.
Interactive game: the Stress Nexus Challenge
Following the great success of the "Energy Transitions Challenge" in the InterPore 2017 meeting in Rotterdam, our partners from Perspectivity have accepted to collaborate this year with the organization of the very engaging “Stress Nexus Challenge”.
The interconnected challenges at the nexus of energy, water and food will strongly shape the future. This creates new and sustained turbulences requiring innovation to make our societies more resilient. The population of the world is growing and people live longer on average. This is causing increased pressure on the planet’s available resources. Water is becoming a scarce commodity in many locations across the globe. Space is limited to feed the whole world if food demand keeps rising. Also, there is an increasing pressure on energy, because traditional resources are depleting and green energy is not yet optimally usable or fully supported.
How would you balance the nexus of water, food and energy? Step into the shoes of those who make the decisions for the whole planet.
Come play the Stress Nexus Challenge!
During this game we will tackle the dilemmas that shape the future of energy, water and food. We play a world where we can experiment with innovative and collaborative approaches to make our society as resilient as possible. In that way, you learn to understand these systems and your role within them.
The game is restricted to PhD students or early career researchers with a maximum of 3 years since the completion of the PhD. Only a limited number of spots are available and a confirmation of participation and additional information will be further sent to the participants by email.
Food and refreshments will be served to the game participants.
Night out!
Experience from the previous years has shown that a good informal night out is the best way to build new links between researchers (and strengthen the old links too)! So, quite simply, we will get together and move to one (or more) of the excellent bars/clubs that New Orleans has to offer. Additional information will be forward later by email to the participants.
Questions can be addressed to Marcel Moura at sac@interpore.org.
