On 29 February 2012, award-winning professional photographer Chris Linder will present “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Tips for Successful Photography in the Polar Regions” as part of the spring 2012 APECS Career Development Webinar Series. Linder, who specializes in communicating science to the public using photography and multimedia, will share his tips on what works—and what doesn't—when photographing science in the Arctic and Antarctica. 

During the webinar, Linder will provide a brief introduction on light and composition, which will be followed by a critique of photos submitted by APECS members. If you would like to submit your best polar science photo for critique, please email it to by Saturday, 25 February 2012. In the subject line, please include “PHOTO FOR WEBINAR”. Photos will remain confidential unless you specify otherwise.

The APECS and the NSF Arctic System Science Thermokarst Project invite you to participate in the Spring 2012 Career Development Webinar Series! There are several great presentations lined up for this spring, which will take participants from preparing for graduate school to publishing journal articles and everything in between. Detailed descriptions of the presentations and the biographies of the presenters are available at http://apecs.is/webinars.

Due to an in-kind contribution from Bredbåndsfylketand, APECS will be using a new, easy to use webinar platform called GoToWebinar for each of the web events. GoToWebinar uses voiceover IP and screen sharing to deliver content, and participants will have the opportunity to type or ask live questions of the presenters. A built in registration system gives participants the opportunity to sign up for webinars ahead of time and type questions for presenters prior to the event. After registering, participants receive a helpful email with tips for setting up the computer and preparing for the event.  

To register in advance or join a webinar in session, go to http://apecs.is/webinars, select a webinar and click on the "Register or Join this Webinar" link on the right-hand side of the table. To attend a webinar you just need your computer or smartphone, an internet connection, and a headset or headphones and a build-in microphone is recommended. We are not using webcams or telephones, so you do not need a web cam or telephone to participate.

We are happy to announce the February Discipline of the Month: Terrestrial Ecology! 

Discover tundra dwellers and their adaptations to extreme environment, learn about trees invading the Arctic and much more. Check out the Terrestrial Ecology page at http://www.apecs.is/research-fields/terrestrial/terrestial-ecology and regularly visit it again for updates. If you have information to share with other members you are most welcome to contribute to the page!

On 16 February 2012 there an on-line Virtual Poster Session dedicated to Polar Terrestrial Ecology issues will be held. If you would like to present your work during the session, there is still an opportunity! 

The discipline of the month for January is featuring Limnology, the study of inland fresh waters. At the time when most arctic lakes are thick with ice cover, we welcome you to discover some of the many resources we’ve put together on the Limnology pages. They are loaded with information on what APECS members are doing, who our mentors are, and how to find out more about Limnology. And the best part- it’s interactive! If you are working on anything related to fresh water sciences, we want to hear form you! Go to the webpage an tell us what your working on, share a publication, link to your research blog and much more.

Later in the month we’ll be hosting a virtual poster session, giving you the opportunity to listen and discover current research topics. Stay tuned for details.

Are you planning to attend the IPY 2012 From Knowledge to Action Conference from 22 – 27 April 2012 in Montreal, Canada? Looking forward to sharing your most recent research? Want to make people aware of your presentation or poster? APECS has developed a great new concept called FrostBytes – Soundbytes of Cool Research that will help you share information about the Polar Regions and the great research you doing – in 60 seconds or less!

APECS will produce FrostBytes for the first time for the IPY 2012 From Knowledge to Action Conference to not only help researchers learn about colleagues work, but to help create a legacy product for the conference that showcases the great research conducted during the International Polar Year (IPY) and the importance of communicating research. Thanks to the Conference Secretariat and Organizers, these FrostBytes will be distributed before, during and after the conference. Substantial prizes will be awarded for the best Frostbytes in several categories – so be sure to create yours today! And most importantly, thank you to our Director Jenny Baeseman for developing the FrostBytes concept!

Interested? Here’s all you need to know to produce your own FrostByte!

Still need funding to attend the IPY conference? Here’s a great opportunity. We already have a great group of APECS members that will help produce all the FrostBytes. But we are looking for a few more video editors. So, iff you have experience in video editing and are available to work on this project from January till March, let us know! To contact us and if you have question, write us an email to

APECS is organizing a workshop and a speed dating event at the next SCAR Open Science Conference in Portland, Oregon.

The workshop will deal with career development and data management. The final workshop schedule, list of speakers and application form will be posted soon on APECS webpage dedicated to the SCAR 2012 Open Science Conference.

APECS is also organizing a speed dating event between early career scientists and senior researchers. These dating events are a lot of fun! Stay tuned and check for more info soon.

Also, don’t forget that abstract submission is due soon (15 February). Hurry up, submit your poster on SCAR webpage, and see you all soon in Portland!

Present: Allen Pope, Angelika Renner, Jennifer Provencher, Jenny Baeseman (Director), Luís Guilherme Resende de Assis, and Yulia Zaika (President)

The APECS Executive Committee 2011/2012 met for the first time in person two weeks ago in the city of Tromsø. The ExCom heads up APECS through leading action, strategy, and decision-making within APECS. Accordingly, the meeting days focused on planning for the upcoming APECS Director transition period as well as the future growth of APECS. This included many discussions about institutional knowledge transfer, hiring schedules, job descriptions, costs to be incurred, strategic plans, and many other administrative considerations. It might not all sound like an exciting job, but it was good experience for the ExCom members and hopefully will ensure smooth sailing for the rest of APECS in the coming years. And the Northern lights a few nights didn’t hurt either!

While in Tromsø, the ExCom also took the opportunity to meet with local partners and advisors including the Arctic Council Secretariat, University of Tromsø administrators, Norwegian Polar Institute, ARCTOS, IASC, the High North Academy, and the APECS Norge Board of Directors. Look out for more collaborations with these folks in the future!

Moving into 2012, the ExCom is really excited that we all got the chance to meet in person! The main takeaway from the meeting is that we want to do all we can to make sure that APECS continues to move both move forwards and innovate. APECS has earned itself a worldwide reputation as THE organization for young polar researchers, and the ExCom will make sure we do all we can to sustain APECS.

Once again the APECS Speed Dating Networking evening during the Arctic Frontiers 2012 conference was a huge success. This year the event was held at the Tromsø Gallery of Contemporary Art. The gallery provided a great venue for our early career researchers, young scientist forum and young professionals to be able to mix and mingle with our interdisciplinary group of established reserachers and policy makers. The chatting and sharing was so great that it was difficult to gather everyone's attention in order to move on to the next event.  A special thanks to the Tromsø Gallery of Contemporary Art for hosting us, to Artic Frontiers for helping to put on the event, and to all those who came out for another wonderful evening of speed networking, especially to our mamy mentors.

Updates from the II APECS-Brazil Workshop (14^th-17^th May 2012)

APECS-Brazil has existed since 2008 and has been active nationally, encouraging, promoting and supporting polar research and education within Brazil. From the success of the first workshop attended by over 140 participants, the second APECS-Brazil Workshop is underway! The three day workshop will focus on “integration of Antarctic research in South America”. 

New information about Hotel accommodation in Rio Grande, RS, Brazil are now available at the II APECS-Brazil Workshop website (http://apecs-brasil-iiworkshop.blogspot.com/). 

Mark the deadlines in your agenda! Registration with low prices is opened until 1^st March 2012. Abstract Submission will be accept until 10^th March 2012. 

After a successful Antarctica Day in Brussels on December 1^st (Antarctica Day workshop in Brussels), several people expressed their interest in the formation of a Belgian APECS committee. Words were quickly followed by action. During 2012 the little snowball that is APECS Belgium will keep on gathering speed and mass…

Our small but diverse core group met during our first monthly meeting in January - Anton, Ines, Dagmar, Pedro, Marie-Jo, Marie, Hendrik, Francesca and Tom brought together biologists, glaciologists, astronomers and even a lawyer. During this meeting, APECS Belgium set out a number of goals for the coming years.

A first requirement is the formation of an official legal structure and Hendrik, as an environmental lawyer, will arrange this. To gain some visibility, we will create a Facebook page and the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO website) will host a website for us.

In 2012, we plan several activities aimed at providing learning platforms for early career scientists in Belgium but also a framework for education and outreach. We plan to visit a social project where people are building a 1:1 replica of the historic Belgica vessel. We want to use this project as a platform to introduce a general audience to the Antarctica expeditions led by three generations (Adrien de Gerlache in the 19^th century, researchers in the 1960s and young researchers). You can visit the Dutch website here.

In September, during the equinox week, we plan a three-day conference in Ghent: starting with a day filled with workshops (presentations skills, how to deal with the media etcetera), followed by a day of presentations and concluding with a networking day with an excursion in the city centre of Ghent.

In 2013, Belgium will be the host of the Antarctic Treaty Meeting. Although this is something for politicians, some delegates plan to attend (part of) this conference and we see it as a perfect opportunity to focus on polar research and a moment to involve a broader audience. Therefore, we plan a 'science fair' with experiments for young and old and a picture exhibition.

In the meantime we will encourage our Belgian APECS member to participate in international activities.

So in a nutshell, this is what APECS Belgium is up to!

Ines Tavernier and Anton Van de Putte, the founding members

What better way to promote the research you will present at the IPY 2012 From knowledge to action conference in Montréal, Canada then by creating a so-called ‘Frostbyte’, a 30-60 second video about your talk or poster?!?

The goal is to help researchers learn about their colleagues work and to help create a legacy product for the conference that shows the research conducted during the international polar year and emphasizes the importance of scientific research and outreach.

Do you want to communicate about your research? Great! Create your own Frostbyte (see link below) and send it to by no later than the 1st of March. Ten (!) editors are now ready to help you edit it and we will upload it to YouTube so people can see your Frostbyte before, during and after the conference. Create yours today, several prizes will be awarded, for several categories including the most viewed Frostbyte… so the sooner you create yours, the more people can watch it!

Special thank you to Jenny Baeseman for developing the concept and to our editors: Erik, Vasily, Molly Jia, Maja, Will, Guiseppe, Alisa, Ananda and Luccas and to our fabulous coordinator Ines Tavernier.

Click here: How to create a Frostbyte?