Summer Conference Season

 

Judging by this photo I took in High Park a few weeks ago it would seem that spring has sprung here in Toronto. That can only mean that it is conference season! Paul has agreed tell you all about a few summer conferences we are supporting here at PVL.

by Dr. Paul Godin

Summer is typically considered a productive time for research on university campuses. With courses typically done, professors and students have more time to dedicate towards research. PVL has the addition of 3 undergrads working in the lab full time for the summer (plus one undergraduate volunteer). 

But it’s not just research that gets a boost during the summer months. Academic conferences to present our research are also more frequent in the summer. Attending conferences is a valuable part of academic life; it provides an opportunity to present your research and develop public speaking skills. But that’s not all: even if you’re not presenting your research conferences are a great opportunity to meet others working in your field, share ideas to help improve your research, and even discover employment opportunities.

Later this month there are two major conferences for members of PVL. The first is the ASTRO 2018 conference by CASI (Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute):

http://www.casi.ca/conferences-events/astro-2018/

Four of us (John, Jake, Alex, and myself) will be driving up to Québec City next week for the three-day conference. ASTRO 18 will have over two hundred attendees from both academia and industry, and multiple sessions running in parallel. While parallel sessions are a great way to maximize the amount of talks that can be given at a conference, it does come with the downside you may not be able to see all the presentations you want, since they can be happening at the same time. Unfortunately, this is the case for mine and John’s presentations, both of which will be taking place at 2:20 PM on May 15^th. Luckily Jake’s talk doesn’t conflict with anyone in our group, his talk is at 10:35 AM on May 17^th, and it’s immediately followed by a second talk by John. If you’re in Quebec City next week, and interested in learning about Canadian space research (and hearing in person what PVL does instead of reading about it from this blog), be sure to register for CASI ASTRO 18.

As I said in the beginning, ASTRO 18 isn’t the only major conference for members of PVL this month; from May 29-31, seven members of PVL (John, Jake, Christina, Brittney, Charissa, Alex, and myself) are travelling to Vancouver for the NSERC CREATE Training Program in Technologies for Exo-Planetary Science (TEPS) Summer School Workshop 2018:

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/technologies-for-exo-planetary-science-teps-summer-school-workshop-2018-tickets-44225985112

 This conference is primarily for members of the TEPS CREATE program, making it smaller than ASTRO 18, with approximately 50 individuals attending overall. A smaller conference like this one has the advantage that participants will be able to listen to every talk and have a greater likelihood of interacting with everyone attending the conference. All of us attending TEPS will be giving a short presentation on our research; so if you aren’t able to come see us in Québec City, come see us in Vancouver instead!

There’s one last type of conference worth mentioning here: one-day local conferences. An excellent example of this are the CPS Planet Day hosted by the University of Toronto Scarborough campus:

 https://cps.utoronto.ca/planetdays.html

CPS Planet Day is a one-day conference that occurs a few times a year and features only a handful of speakers talking about various topics in planetary sciences and astronomy. A CPS Planet Day took place last week and all of PVL was in attendance, learning about the detection of exoplanets, planetary evolution, and a planal about career opportunities after completing grad school.

Another one-day conference is taking place this week on campus at York. The Physics and Astronomy Graduate Executive (PAGE) is hosting a conference on May 10^th to provide an opportunity for Graduate students at York to present their research to their peers. While no members of PVL are presenting this year, the conference will nevertheless be an exciting insight into research at York.

Expect to see blog post in the future detailing PVL’s exploits at conferences this summer!