collaboration

In 2012, a group of bright- eyed students and post-docs gathered at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest in Blue River, Oregon, to learn about climate change, climate adaptation, and science communication. There, in the rainforest of the Pacific Northwest, a community of peers formed whose affiliations ranged from Alaska to the Hawaiian Islands to each of the corners of the continental U.S. These early career professionals decided to form a network to support each other in their future endeavors.

As a first year PhD student, being a part of the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center is a spectacular learning opportunity. Each month, I’m able to participate in meetings and seminars, to learn about the work of other researchers and students, and to improve my own research and engagement. Being a student at the University of Minnesota and part of the NE CASC, I feel particularly fortunate to learn about work spanning both the Great Lakes states and the Northeast.

My interest in understanding the biological, cultural, and historical context of the human experience started at a very young age, and continues to this day. I am an environmental anthropologist, and currently an NC CSC fellow and PhD student in Ecology at Colorado State University. My training has been broad, and has allowed me to work in very different systems. I started down my career path working in Central Asia to understand the late Pleistocene biogeography of humans and Neanderthals during glacial and interglacial periods.

I was a bit taken aback on our third day of training at the 6^th annual Northwest Climate Boot Camp (NW CBC), which was held at the University of Idaho’s (UI) McCall Outdoor Science School (MOSS) in McCall, Idaho.  During our interactive lesson on producing podcasts using Audacity, we were asked to head into McCall and interview members of the community about what water means to them and, if possible, their

On getting climate model projections in the hand of managers. 

In the past several decades, climate scientists have developed robust models that simulate past climate conditions and provide meaningful projections for the future. In the past several years, researchers have developed downscaled climate projections that provide the kind of local guidance resource managers have been demanding. And now all those managers are making climate-informed decisions.

On November 2nd and 3rd, the first ever National CSC Early Career Training was held at UMass Amherst. Over 2-days, students from across the U.S. heard about peer reserach ranging from butterflies in North Carolina, paleoclimatology along the Gulf Coast, to how wild berries are impacted by fire regimes in Alaska, along with so much more. In case you missed it, Andrew Battles wrote a short summary a few weeks ago.

Most early career climate scientists, myself included, entered the field during the years of the Obama Administration. Climate science was officially respected and encouraged, and we saw the U.S. take a leading role in negotiating the Paris Accord and back up its talk by substantially reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

Last week, I attended the National CSC Student and Early Career Training held at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and left feeling inspired, empowered, and with many new friends. From November 2-3rd, students, postdocs, and professionals from the Department of the Interior’s National Climate Science Centers came together to share research, learn from one another, and improve our skills as collaborators and science communicators.

In early November, the Northeast Climate Science Center will host the first ever National CSC Student and Early Career Training at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Hawaiʻi was fortunate enough to have the honor to host the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress this September. This was the first time in its 70-year history that the Congress has ever been held in the United States. Around 10,000 participants came together in Honolulu and embraced the Aloha Spirit. The sheer size of the Congress was astounding alone but the diversity of people attending made it all the more impressive.