Bremen International Graduate School for Marine Sciences

The Ame­ri­can Geo­phy­si­cal Uni­on (AGU) Fall Mee­ting 2018 was held from 10-14.12.2018 in Washington, D.C., US. AGU Fall meeting is considered the big­gest geo­sci­en­ti­fic con­fe­rence world­wi­de, indeed, more than 24,000 par­ti­ci­pants attended AGU 2018. This year, the AGU Fall meeting was also enriched by events and activities organized in order to celebrate the AGU’s Centennial.

A wide perspective of marine geo­sci­en­ti­fic to­pics were presented at the conference, however there was not a specific session for my Ph.D. project in terms of subject (cold-water corals) or research area (African margins, SE Atlantic). For this reasons. I presented a poster in the session “Geological evolution of continental shelves”, during the first day. By providing an original topic with novel datasets from an “exotic” research area and provocative discussions, the poster highlighted my contribution in the session, as demonstrated by the relatively high interest and feedbacks received. This pre­sen­ta­ti­on gave me the chan­ce to dis­cuss my re­sults with re­se­ar­chers not involved in cold-water corals research, which makes their feed­back an interesting perspective to consider through the up­co­m­ing months.

The second day, I presented with Kimberly Galvez (colleague from RSMAS-Univ. Miami) another poster in the “Public affair” session about the outreach project “Once upon a time…a scientific fairy tale”. The third personal contribution was the volunteering activity at the booth of “Research in Germany” where I provided information about Ph. D. experience in Germany as a foreigner.

Apart from my contributions, I spend most of the time at the pos­ter ses­si­ons to get in touch with other ear­ly ca­re­er sci­en­tists, but I attended some the oral sessions on topics related to seafloor mapping and coral geochemistry. The pos­ter and oral ses­si­ons were a gre­at net­wor­king op­por­tu­ni­ty whe­re, amongst other things, I had the pos­si­bi­li­ty to learn and dis­cuss about me­thods used by different re­se­ar­chers on topics close to my Ph.D. project. Be­si­des the above-men­tio­ned ses­si­ons, I at­ten­ded two keyno­te inspiring spee­ches “The Giant of Tectonophysics” and “Fifty years of Scientific Ocean Drilling: How the past informs the Future”, lightening the passion that brought me to study geology. Mo­re­o­ver, I par­ti­ci­pa­ted in two early-career events cal­led “C.V.s 101” and “AGU Pathfinder Career Center & Student Lounge”, which will help to im­pro­ve my resume/CV and to plan a career that suits better with my scientific/technical background and skills.

After the conference time, I had chance to get in touch with other researchers by participating in some section-related (Ocean Sciences, Paleoceonography, Near-surface Geophysics) networking events, planned during registration. I was invited also to the RSMAS-University of Miami event and I attended the IODP Town Hall Meeting. In addition, AGU 2018 offered to all the attendees a “Night at Museum” experience at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, which was a brilliant event for the last evening of the conference.

In sum­ma­ry, my first in­tern­ational (and large) con­fe­rence was a gre­at suc­cess. I ex­ten­ded my sci­en­ti­fic net­work and I got va­luable feed­back for my on­go­ing re­se­arch. The­re­fo­re, I would like to thank GLO­MAR for the fi­nan­ci­al sup­port.