Bremen International Graduate School for Marine Sciences
Janina Bösche
Report of GLOMAR PhD student Janina Bösche about her participation in the Gordon Organic Geochemistry Research Conference and Seminar in Holderness, NH, USA from 30 July to 5 August 2022
The Gordon Organic Geochemistry Conference and Seminar took place in Holderness, New Hampshire (USA) from the 30th of July until the 5th of August 2022. The first 1.5 days of the conference were planned as a separate meeting, the Gordon Research Seminar, dedicated to early career researchers only. This offers the opportunity for young scientists to connect before the actual conference and to give a talk or present a poster in front of a less experienced and smaller audience. Since this was my first in-person conference, I gladly participated in the Gordon Research Seminar and accepted the great opportunity to function as co-discussion leader for the session “Novel Analytical Techniques and Unconventional Biomarkers”. Due to this position I had the chance to get connected with the other co-discussion leader and speakers in this session already prior to the conference. The inspiring seminar “How to thrive during your PhD, Postdoc and beyond” was organized as part of the research seminar, in which an expert group of successful scientists offered to answer career-related questions.
The program of the following conference was in its organization very consistent throughout the days: The scientific program started with talks in the morning. In the afternoon, a two-hour poster session was on the agenda and after dinner there was a second session with talks. The conference is scheduled without any overlap of the different sessions. Therefore, no selection between any agenda item was necessary. My highlight was the session: “Lipid Membranes: From Biophysics to Adaptation to Novel Proxies”, but overall every session consisted of very interesting talks, relevant for my field.
The posters were displayed for two days, which offered enough time to attend your own poster for questions, and also visit other posters in your session. During the seminar and the actual conference I presented my poster with the title “Thaumarchaeotal enrichment in the tests of giant deep-sea foraminifera”.
The conference took place in a boarding school during the summer holidays of the enrolled pupil. Accommodation was organized in dorms and every participant enjoyed the meals in one big dining room together. After lunch, a three-hour break offered the chance to participate in social activities like a kayak tour, hikes or a soccer match. Together these circumstances created a very special environment, perfect to get to know other scientist from the field of organic geochemistry from all career stages.
Overall I am very glad that the conference took place in person and not as online or hybrid meeting, because together with the general concept of the conference, I used the many chances to connect to other scientists in the field.
I would like to conclude this report with thanking the graduate school GLOMAR and the MARUM cluster of Excellence for funding my trip and participation in this conference.
