Secretary’s Note: Below I have included the full meeting agenda that we began with, but we did not get to cover quite a bit of this at the meeting-proper. I have made efforts to distinguish what we did cover versus what we did not. M Aiello-Lammens   Attendees:   Brief Introductions Discussion of our views on the role(s) our…

We’re running a targeted Early Career Mentoring program again this year! Conferences provide unique opportunities for biologists to interact with others in their field; however, these opportunities are rarely structured to promote meaningful interactions between the next generation ecologists and more senior scientists. Access to strong mentors both within and outside of their main institution is critical to support early…

The Early Career Ecologist Section has been busy proposing, organizing, and collaborating to offer many events and resources in the near future. See our page for ESA 2016 for more details on these and other events! They include: An Early Career Section Booth – Come and visit! We’ve worked to make this a Parent-Friendly meeting. See our Blog Post. Our…

As the early bird deadline for the ESA Annual Meeting in Fort Lauderdale approaches (Thursday!), you might want to know about some parent accommodations that will be available there:   Lactation rooms at the conference center for nursing and pumping mothers. Private, quiet, and clean rooms for moms to nurse their babies or to pump breast milk. These rooms will…

or “Who the hell am I to talk about this issue, anyways?!” Late last year, I was asked to write a blog for the Early Career Ecologist Section of the ESA, and I initially chose to focus it on a rather controversial topic: gender bias in academia. Now, the truth is that I’ve been a bit hesitant to get my…

My name is Eric Gustafson and I am a landscape ecologist who specializes in forest landscape simulation modeling, particularly with the LANDIS-II model (http://www.landis-ii.org/).  I received my PhD from Purdue University in 1992, and have been a Research Ecologist for the Northern Research Station of the U.S. Forest Service since then.  I am tempted to list my accomplishments so that…

My friends from grad school knew me as the go-getter, the one with boundless energy and capacity to do “all the things!” During my PhD career, I juggled (largely successfully) multiple side research and writing projects, leading a local chapter for the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB), organizing BBQ’s and parties, a long-distance partner, and a voracious novel-reading habit along…

We are excited to announce that our long-range planning grant has been funded by ESA, which will allow us to run a semi-formal Early Career Mentoring Program at ESA 2016 in Ft. Lauderdale!

Lessons learned so far I am just a couple of days away from starting my second semester as an Assistant Professor, and it seems like a good time to reflect on what I’ve learned so far. First, a brief background. I received a PhD in Ecology and Evolution from Stony Brook University in April 2014. I began a postdoc at…

As a professional society and a generation of early career ecologists, I’d argue that collectively we’re more aware of the importance of diversity than ever before. ESA has a diversity statement, dedicated diversity staff, and multiple programs focused on maintaining and improving a diverse community of ecologists. And with good reasons – our community’s own traditional currency, published peer reviewed…

Post written by Sarah Supp In October, we took a brief survey of our members to try to identify what topics are of key concern for the Early Career Ecologist (ECE) Section and to address a few questions that ESA leadership specifically had regarding early career perspectives on ESA membership. I attended the ESA Governing Board meeting November 5-6, 2015…

Early career experience with the panel system My name is Christel Kern. I am a Research Forester for the USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station. I have been working as government scientist since I received my PhD in 2011. The first few years of life as a government scientist have worked well for me so far. Before I get into…