Professional Development Calendar

Dates: Begins January 2, 2023 (instructor support begins in March)

Bayesian methods for analyzing data are now widely used in ecology and wildlife management. The Bayesian approach involves specifying the “prior” distribution, which represents the uncertainty about the model parameters before we collect the data, and the likelihood, which represents the plausibility of different parameters values based solely on the data. These are combined via Bayes’ Rule to obtain the “posterior” distribution for the parameters, which represents the uncertainty about the parameters after we have analyzed the data. Using the Bayesian approach gives you more flexibility in the type of models that you can fit, compared to the classical frequentist approach, as the model is typically specified in the same way that you would write it down mathematically. Once you have become familiar with fitting a Bayesian model in R, you will appreciate the extra flexibility and the more intuitive way in which the results can be presented.
You have two options when enrolling in this course:
(1) Instructor support. Reach out to your instructor over a 1-month period to get help as you work through prerecorded lectures, problem sets, and your own personal work. You then have access to the course for an additional 2 months. Instructor support includes emailing your instructor, accessing live discussion threads, and scheduling one-on-one appointments (Zoom or phone) about course material, your research, datasets from work, etc. You MUST select this option if you want to take the course for academic credit at your home institution or you would like to work with an instructor on a dataset from school or work.

Early bird course fee (ends December 5): $500 professional / $400 student

Regular course fee (after December 5): $550 professional / $450 student

(2) No instructor support. Sign up anytime over a 3-month period and learn at your own pace as you work through prerecorded lectures and problem sets. Be aware that at any time during the first month, you may upgrade to receive Instructor support.

Early bird course fee (ends December 5): $375 professional / $275 student

Regular course fee (after December 5): $400 professional / $300 student

Full instructor support

Spring early bird course fee (ends February 5): $600 professional / $500 student

Spring regular course fee (after February 5): $650 professional / $550 student

No instructor support

Winter regular course fee: $400 professional / $300 student

Spring early bird course fee: (ends February 5): $350 professional / $250 student

Dates: January 3, 2023 – February 26, 2023 (enroll anytime)

Analyses of wildlife home range and habitat use are used in wildlife-focused disciplines to inform population and habitat management practices. The geographical space used by animals is largely driven by habitat selection, where habitat can be described by spatially explicit site factors (e.g., land cover). Geospatial modeling is the process of synthesizing geographically referenced field measurements and spatial data layers representing those site factors. In this course, we will process raw point location data, estimate home ranges, and conduct habitat assessments using raster land cover data and the open-source software applications QGIS and R.
You have two options when enrolling in this course:
(1)  Instructor support. Reach out to your instructor over a 1-month period to get help as you work through prerecorded lectures, problem sets, and your own personal work. You then have access to the course for an additional month with less consistent support. Instructor support includes emailing your instructor, accessing live discussion threads, and scheduling one-on-one appointments (Zoom or phone) about course material, your research, datasets from work, etc. You MUST select this option if you want to take the course for academic credit at your home institution. It is highly RECOMMENDED that you select this option if you would like to work with an instructor on a dataset from school or work.

Early bird course fee (ends Nov 27th): $550 professional / $450 student

Regular course fee (after Nov 27th): $600 professional / $500 student

(2)  NO instructor support. Sign up anytime over a 2-month period and learn at your own pace as you work through prerecorded lectures and problem sets. Be aware that at any time during the first month, you may upgrade to receive Instructor support.

Early bird course fee (ends Nov 27th): $400 professional / $300 student

Regular course fee (after Nov 27th): $450 professional / $350 student

Winter session: Opens on January 3, 2022, and closes on March 26, 2023
INSTRUCTORS: Drs. Gina Himes Boor & Jack Hopkins

The 2022-2023 Forests + Climate Learning Exchange Series (LES), co-hosted by the Forest Carbon and Climate Program (FCCP) and the Society of American Foresters (SAF), invites academics, practitioners, policymakers, and other experts to present innovative and important research, projects, and strategies relating to forest carbon. The series aims to develop and expand forest stakeholder knowledge and perspectives on forest carbon science, management, and strategy.

The events take place the first Wednesday of each month at 3 pm Eastern. Recordings will be posted below following the event.

January 9 – February 17, 2023

Become the Scientist Pilot!

Learn the basics of drone flight operations, how to become legally certified, and how to fly effectively for scientific research purposes. (six weeks, asynchronous video lectures and assessments, plus six 1.5 hour synchronous sessions Thursdays from 7-8:30pm ET)

EFI and the ESA Statistical Ecology Section are hosting this virtual seminar series that demonstrates a variety of quantitative methods applied within Ecology and Environmental Science in the R programming language. Attendees will gain valuable insight into methods that they may or may not be familiar with from experts on a given topic.

by the Wildlife Society’s Biological Diversity Working Group

Sound Solutions for Sustainable Science (S4) are offering a series of three professional development workshops on Communicating Scientific Knowledge. The three workshops are:

Fundamentals of Writing Abstracts (01/19/2023)
Creating Scientific Posters (02/16/2023)
Crafting Oral Presentations (03/16/2023)

Each workshop is independent of the other two. Any of the three can be taken by itself.