Skip to main content

Professional Development from ESA

Get your professional development from your professional society! These scientific, technical and professional virtual events are a benefit to members and certified ecologists, and a resource for the community. Keep note of this page and our webinar schedule — and your email inbox — for opportunities to gain valuable skills at a fraction of the cost you’ll find elsewhere. And as always, ESA members save the most!

Contact webinars@esa.org with questions about sessions. Stay subscribed to ESA communications to ensure you receive the event recording and follow-up materials.

We are offering fee waivers for those affected by reductions in the federal workforce and research funding. Please contact esahq@esa.org

Please be aware that registration will be closed 1 hour before the event.

Upcoming Sessions

Future-Proofing Your Science Career

Facilitated by Cassie Briggs

Get all three events in our Future-proofing Your Science Career series at a discount!

Use these hands-on workshops to understand yourself as a scientist and craft a career pathway that supports your aspirations in work and life.

Starts January 15, 2026

Register for the bundle

Student Members $100   Regular Members $150   Non-Members $250

Clarifying your Professional Brand

Facilitated by Cassie Briggs

This is the first workshop of “Future-Proofing Your Science Career” series. You may have authored influential papers, managed long-term field sites, or contributed to groundbreaking ecological models, but how much time and effort have you invested in building your professional brand lately? In a competitive and evolving research landscape, your professional brand is one of your most powerful tools. Your brand shapes how others perceive your value and how you make career decisions that influence your long-term fulfillment and well-being. This hands-on workshop will walk you through the process of building your own professional brand. You will define your core values, uncover your genuine interests, and identify your distinguishing skills, while also acknowledging the skills you want to develop—all in the context of your broader, long-term life goals. We will also begin connecting these elements into a clear and compelling message, so you walk away from this session with greater clarity about who you are as a professional and what you want in your career. This foundation will help you make more informed decisions and attract well-aligned career opportunities that support your aspirations in both work and life.

Learning objectives include:

  • Defining your professional brand by articulating your core values, sincere interests, and distinguishing skills in alignment with long-term goals and priorities.
  • Identifying areas for professional growth by recognizing emerging skills you want to develop to remain adaptable in an evolving research landscape.
  • Crafting an authentic professional narrative that effectively communicates who you are as a scientist and the value you bring to collaborators, funders, and employers
  • Who is this for? Students & early career professionals in ecology or adjacent field, particularly researchers (academic, industry, government, or nonprofit)
  • Career Level: Useful to all career levels, but tailored to students, recent graduates, and early-career.
  • Prerequisite Education or Experience? No prior experience required.

January 15, 2026  2:00-3:30 PM ET

Register

Student Members $40   Regular Members $80   Non-Members $150

Leveraging your Professional Brand to Uncover Opportunities

Facilitated by Cassie Briggs

This is the second workshop of “Future-Proofing Your Science Career” series. You’ve done the hard work of building a professional brand—now it’s time to put it to use. Whether you’re exploring your first career steps, preparing for a pivot, or refining your professional path after years in the field, this hands-on workshop will help you translate your brand into a clear and actionable plan.
Using your top values, interests, and skills as a compass, you’ll explore three key strategies for identifying and pursuing well-aligned career opportunities: searching, networking, and pitching. Through guided exercises and collaborative discussion, you’ll experiment with ways to use your brand to discover and/or create well-aligned career opportunities.
You’ll walk away with a clearer understanding of what you’re looking for right now, where to find it, and how to position yourself in a way that feels both authentic and strategic, plus a shortlist of next steps that move your career forward with intention.

Learning objectives include:

  • Using your professional brand to target their job search by focusing on roles and organizations that align with their values, interests, and skills.
  • Apply your brand to strengthen networking efforts by identifying key contacts and crafting authentic, value-driven messages.
  • Leverage your brand to pitch their dream opportunity by connecting their strengths to an organization’s needs or a gap in the field.
  • Who is this for? Graduate students, early & mid-career professionals in ecology or adjacent field, particularly researchers (academic, industry, government, or nonprofit) on or ready to hit the job market.
  • Career Level: Useful to all career levels, but tailored to graduate students, recent graduates, early-career, and mid-career/management.
  • Prerequisite Education or Experience? No prior experience required. Watched and completed workbook exercises for Part I in Future Proof Your Science Career series preferred, but not mandatory

January 22, 2026  2:00-3:30 PM ET

Register

Student Members $40   Regular Members $80   Non-Members $150

Communicating your Professional Brand

Facilitated by Cassie Briggs

This is the third workshop of “Future-Proofing Your Science Career” series. It’s one thing to understand your professional brand, it’s another to translate it into a powerful resume and cover letter that appeals to the reviewer. In this hands-on workshop, you’ll take concrete steps to do just that.
With guided exercises and peer feedback, you’ll identify the most relevant elements of your brand to emphasize for a given opportunity, draft resume bullet points that highlight value, not just tasks, and shape a cover letter that tells a cohesive and compelling story.
Furthermore, you’ll leave with a repeatable process for tailoring future applications, and increased confidence that your materials reflect both your brand (i.e. your ‘deliverables’) and the likely evaluation criteria (i.e. the organization’s ‘desirables’).

Learning objectives include:

  • Analyzing position descriptions and organizations to identify core evaluation criteria and tailor application materials accordingly.
  • Crafting accomplishment-based resume bullets that demonstrate impact and highlight value rather than simply tasks.
  • Writing a cohesive and compelling cover letter that communicates your professional brand and fit for the role.
  • Who is this for? Graduate students, early & mid-career professionals in ecology or adjacent field, particularly researchers (academic, industry, government, or nonprofit) on or ready to hit the job market.
  • Career Level: Useful to all career levels, but tailored to students (applying for internships), recent graduates, early-career, and mid-career/management, and senior.
  • Prerequisite Education or Experience? No prior experience required. Watched and completed workbook exercises for Part I and II in Future Proof Your Science Career series preferred, but not mandatory
    • *All attendees WILL need to bring a job ad for an opportunity they are interested in applying for.

January 29, 2026  2:00-3:30 PM ET

Register

Student Members $40   Regular Members $80   Non-Members $150

Introduction to Sparse Modeling in R

Facilitated by Amy Patterson

Have you ever felt like your data is too big or complex to model easily? Here is a chance to expand your knowledge of how to analyze datasets with many covariates and to overcome traditional statistical challenges such as overfitting and poor predictive performance. We will teach you how to leverage sparse modeling approaches using accessible R packages to glean value from big data. The skill level required is intermediate: you need to know how to use R and RStudio, download and install packages on your own, open Rmd files, and be familiar with the concept of linear models to get the most out of this workshop. Participants will learn about sparse modeling techniques, create SuSiE (susieR) and lasso (glmnet) scripts in R, and visualize and interpret fitted models during our live coding session.

Learning objectives include:

  • Understanding what sparsity is, in the context of data analysis and statistical modeling.
  • Knowing when sparse modeling can be useful.
  • Using Lasso to make a sparse model with an appropriate data set.
  • Using SuSiE to make a sparse model with an appropriate data set.
  • Using cross validation to evaluate model performance.
  • Making visualizations comparing the performance of different models.
  • Who is this for? Ecologists, environmental biologists, and others who are motivated by working with biological data. Participants should be interested in learning about making statistical models with many covariates.
  • Career Level: All career levels are welcome, though people who already have extensive experience with sparse modeling may not feel as engaged with the material.
  • Prerequisite Education or Experience? Participants should have some basic knowledge of R and R Studio, such as downloading and installing R and R Studio before the workshop, opening an Rmd file, and installing a package in R.

February 4, 2026  3:00-6:00 PM ET

Register

Student Members $30 Regular Members $75 Non-Members $150

AI for Ecological Data Visualization & Communication

Facilitated by Dr. Leo Calle (CalleEcology, Inc.)

This course equips ecologists and data scientists with the skills to use AI tools—particularly ChatGPT and Claude—for designing compelling visual narratives from complex datasets. Participants will use AI to generate code for data visualizations in Python & R, interpret results, and auto-generate captions or narrative summaries suitable for publications, reports, and public engagement.
By leveraging large language models (LLMs) for code generation and narrative development, participants will learn to efficiently transform ecological data into publication-ready graphics while maintaining reproducibility and best practices in data visualization.

Learning objectives include:

  • Auto-generating R/Python code for graphs using ggplot2, matplotlib, seaborn, and plotly
  • Transforming ecological data into compelling visual narratives
  • Using LLMs to translate visuals into plain-language summaries for diverse audiences
  • Building reproducible visualization workflows
  • Refining AI-generated visualizations through iterative prompt engineering
  • Developing effective figure captions and interpretation textDescribing recent changes in fire regimes and implications for forest ecosystems in Eastern Mediterranean.
  • Who is this for? Scientists, graduate students, early-career professionals, and science communicators working with ecological datasets.
  • Career Level: Suitable for ecologists and data practitioners with basic Python/R knowledge who want to enhance their data visualization and communication skills.
  • Prerequisite Education or Experience? Basic familiarity with Python or R; understanding of fundamental ecological concepts; no advanced programming skills required.

February 10–13, 2026  11:00 AM-12:30 PM ET

Register

Student Members $250 Regular Members $400 Non-Members $600

Post-fire Ecological Restoration and Conflict Resolution

Facilitated by: Okan Ürker

In this webinar, we explore how post-fire ecological restoration, sustainable beekeeping, and bear–beekeeper conflict transformation can be integrated to build resilient socio–ecological systems in Mediterranean-type fire landscapes. The session highlights ongoing restoration work in southwestern Türkiye, including the Turquoise Coast Environment Fund (TCEF)-supported project ‘Mega Wildfire Areas Become Bee Forests!’. Participants will gain concrete examples of landscape-scale restoration strategies.

Learning objectives include:

  • Who is this for? This webinar is tailored for restoration ecologists, fire ecologists, conservation biologists, environmental social scientists, and practitioners working on post-fire recovery, pollinator habitats, or human–wildlife coexistence.
  • Career Level: All levels, but should have a basic understanding of restoration ecology, fire ecology, and ecological field methods.
  • Prerequisite Education or Experience? Participants are expected to have a basic understanding of: General principles of restoration ecology and/or fire ecology, and foundational knowledge of ecological field methods and conservation practice. Familiarity with human-wildlife conflict or sustainable agriculture/forestry will be helpful but not required.

February 26, 2026  noon-1:00 PM ET

Register

Student Members $10 Regular Members $20 Non-Members $40

Tell Us What You Want to See!

We want this program to meet our members’ needs, so if there are particular topics you’d like to see us offer virtually, fill out this form.

Professional Development Suggestion
Your name
Your name
First
Last
May we follow up with you about this, if we need more information?