Association of Polar Early Career Scientists

 

apecs logo webArctic Frontiers Logo new 2013APECS was a partner of the Arctic Frontiers 2014 conference in Tromsø, Norway from 19 – 24 January 2014 with the theme "Humans in the Arctic" and one of the main contributors to its Young Scientist Forum:

  • Science Communication and Media Training Workshop on 19 January
  • Networking Reception "Arctic Games" organized together with the Fram Centre in Tromsø on 21 January
  • "Science For Schools" together with the Arctic Frontiers and the Science Centre of Northern Norway (Nordnorsk Vitensenteret)
  • APECS also organised the poster awards for the conference for early career poster presenters

Industrious APECS Executive Committee in-person meeting, January 17 - 18, 2014

ExCom 2013-14 Photo2The APECS Excom in-person meeting (Tromsø, Norway; January 17-18, 2014) did more than it said on the tin: it not only provided the five of us with a chance to finally meet in person; we were also joined by our Director and our three ex-officio members!

After having spent a first industrious day at the University of Tromsø, we were kindly hosted by the Director of the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) Project Jenny Baeseman and her family on the second day. Add any number of visitors, and it was a full-house indeed. Thank you, Jenny!

True to form, our agenda was equally packed. We carefully evaluated various ongoing APECS activities: what was going well and what was in need of adjustments. A look at our Council, our sub-committees, and our working groups showed that we are on top of our priorities for 2013/14. Thanks to the hard work of the previous ExCom to secure funding for the directorate, we even dared to say that our workload was overseeable – even enjoyable!

Pressing matters that are now being tackled are the APECS Strategic Plan 2014-17 as well as the relationship of APECS International with its National Committees and their respective partners. Such matters serve to remind us that as we grow as an organisation, new and exciting situations continuously arise. We are proud of our National Committees and we hope that long-lasting and fruitful partnerships will come out of it.

On that note, our ExCom meeting also provided the chance for several side-meetings with some of our APECS partner organisations: Jenny Baeseman of said Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) Project discussed which direction our cooperation could take; and Charles Fierz, President of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS) is very much looking forward to a collaboration that will motivate more early-career alpine scientists to join APECS and benefit from the membership. Furthermore, we met with representatives from the University of the Arctic (UArctic), with whom we share our field schools and graduate programs catalogue and whose student ambassadors very much look forward to some joint events in the near future.

Thanks to the in-person meeting, your APECS Excom feels confident and invigorated and cannot wait to engage on the tasks of a 'cool' 2014.

APECS Representatives at the Arctic Frontiers 2014 Science Committees

ARCTIC FRONTIERS Logo new 2013For the Arctic Frontiers 2014 conference in Tromsø, Norway (19 – 26 January), four APECS members were selected to serve as early career researcher representatives on the Science Committees of the conference: Marney Paradis was member of the Live, Work, and Stay Healthy in the Arctic session, and her graduate studies on leadership within Indigenous education played a role in establishing strong professional connections with other session members. Dr. Frigga Kruse was chosen as member to the Health and Environment session, and her arctic archaeologicall knowledge base provided important historical context to the committee. Mia Bennett drew upon her familiarity with arctic geopolitics to assist in the abstract review and selection in the Shipping and Offshore committee. Piotr Graczyk assisted as member of the Arctic Search and Rescue committee, in which he utilized his studies of international relations and arctic cooperation in the selection criteria.

We would like to take this opportunity to extend our appreciation to the Arctic Frontiers and APECS committees. Serving as Science Committee members and as Early Career Research Representatives has been tremendously enriching and highly rewarding. Assisting in this process was a welcomed task, as it provided us all the opportunity to liaise with committee chairs and immerse ourselves into the world of international science management. Further, the auspicious role of helping shape the messages and delivery of the conference itself is a learned task that will doubtlessly benefit us in the future.

Serving as an APECS representative is a process we would recommend to all. Bridging early career polar researchers with established and highly knowledgeable arctic authorities is certainly a worthwhile objective, and is one in which the Arctic Frontiers Conference is known to provide. Networking, exchanging ideas, and strategizing developed into tangible plans of action. In other words, seemingly informal interactions transformed into professional international relationships. As APECS representatives, we have secured rapport amongst our circumpolar colleagues, and this is something that we are truly grateful for. Again, a huge thank you to both the Arctic Frontiers and the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists. You have helped us in many ways, and we have nothing but gratitude for this!

Marney Paradis, Frigga Kruse, Mia Bennett, Piotr Graczyk

Science Communications Workshop at Arctic Frontiers 2014

APECS organized a small Science Communications and Media Training Workshop at the Young Scientist Forum activities for the Arctic Frontiers 2014 Conferences. The workshop happened on 19 January 2014 and brought together a small group of early career researchers attending the conference to learn about ways how to use social media (especially Twitter) for your science communication as well as tips and tricks on how to work with the media and how journalists find their science stories.

Mentors for the workshop were Tom Fries (Arctic Council Secretariat, Norway), Patricia Azinhaga (University of Coimbra, Portugal), Jose Xavier (University of Coimbra, Portugal), Bjørn Lindahl (Svenksa Dagbladet, Sweden), Malin Avenius (frilans, Sverige Radio), Tom Yulsman (Univrsity of Colorado, United States).

We want to thank the mentors for taking their time to join us for this event and providing advice to our participants and thank you also to the participants for a great and very interesting discussion.ArcticFrontiers Science Workshop2014 1

Science for Schools event during Arctic Frontiers 2014

APECS teamed up with Arctic Frontiers and the Nordnorsk Vitensenter (Science Centre of Northern Norway) during Arctic Frontiers 2014 to organise a "Arctic Frontiers Science for Schools" event. The goal of the event was to tell high school students from several schools in Tromsø about Arctic research and get them interested in a science career later on.

Two sessions were organised on 22 and 23 January 2014 in which early career researchers attending the Arctic Frontiers 2014 conference as well as early career researchers from University of Tromsø presented about their research. Thank you to: Karolina Paquin (University of Tromsø, Norway), Jean-Sébastien Moore (Université Laval, Canada), Frigga Kruse (University of Groningen, Netherlands), Yulia Zaika (M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia), Christie Logvinova (Clark University, United States), Pernilla Carlsson (AMAP, Norway), Jennifer Provencher (Carleton University, Canada) and Ida Helene (University of Tromsø, Norway) for some great presentations!

Besides the presentations, the Nordnorsk Vitensenter had also organised more activities regarding Arctic research for the students. A poster session was also organised by the high school students presenting about class projects. The posters were judged by three of the early career researchers attending the event (Jean-Sébastien Moore, Ida Helene and Gerlis Fugmann) and the winners received a prize and will be attending part of the science sessions during the Arctic Frontiers 2015 conference.

The event was a great success this year and plans are ongoing for a similar event for Arctic Frontiers 2015. A special thank you also to the organisers of the event Tove Marienborg (Nordnorsk Vitensenter) and her staff, Vibeke Tannvik (Arctic Frontiers) and Gerlis Fugmann (APECS).

Also check out the nice article published about the event by Irene Quaile (Deutsche Welle) http://blogs.dw.de/ice/?m=20140124 Science for Schools Arctic Frontiers 2014

APECS and the Arctic Frontiers Poster Awards

APECS ARctic Frontiers 2014 poster sessionAnother year at the Arctic Frontiers Conference, and another great year of poster awards organized by APECS. The Arctic Frontiers Conference and APECS have teamed up for the last 4 years to recognize early career researchers for their efforts at the conference.

This year there were four fabulous winners. In Part 1 (Live, work and stay healthy in the Arctic) Morten Skandfer won for his poster titled “Improving the health protection of high Arctic Miners”. In Part 2 (Health and Environment in the Arctic) Ariadne Szczybelski won for her poster titled “Development of ARCtic Biological INDicators for the impact assessment of (new)human activities: the ARCIND project”. In Part 3 (Shipping and offshore in the Arctic) Caroline Coch won for her poster titled “Effects of cruise ship tourism on the remote island ofÍsafjörður, Iceland”. Each of the section winners received a one-day free registration pass for the 2015 Arctic Frontiers conference, Climate and Energy. The overall poster winner was Laila Arensatter Hopstock for her poster “Arctic hearts – seasonal variation in cardio-vascular disease risk factors in the Tromsø study 1979-2008”. The overall winner won a full complimentary registration for next year’s conference courtesy of the Arctic Frontiers Conference.

Thanks again to all those who submitted and presented posters at this year’s conference.  Additionally, a special thanks to all our poster judges, and we hope to see you all next year!

Science Communications Workshop Agenda

12:00 - 12:15                                                Welcome and Introduction
12:15 - 13:00  Tweeting Science: Why - and how, it works (Tom Fries, Arctic Council Secretariat, Norway)
13:00 - 13:30  Communicating Science with Patricia Azinhaga (University of Coimbra, Portugal) and Jose Xavier (University of Coimbra,    Portugal / British Antarctic Survey, UK)
13:30 - 14:10  Working with the media with Bjørn Lindahl (Svenska Dagbladet, Sweden) 
14:10 - 14:30   Working with the media with Malin Avenius (frilans Sverige Radio) 
14:30 - 15:00   Climage change as a case study to discuss how journlists and the media communicate science "the good, the bad and the  ugly" (Tom Yulsman, University of Colorado, United States) 

Contact APECS

APECS International Directorate
UiT The Arctic University of Norway
Huginbakken 14
9019 Tromsø
Norway
Email: info(at)apecs.is

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