Category Archives: Uncategorized

Alumni Career Panel Discussion

What: The Department of Geosciences Alumni Advisory Board is hosting a career
panel during which alumni working in the Energy and the Environmental fields as
well as within Academics will be available to discuss career paths in their respective
areas.

When: Tuesday September 14, 2021, 5:00-6:30 pm EDT.
Who: All undergraduate and graduate students are WELCOME. If you are not able to
join the entire meeting, feel free to join portions that fit your schedule. Also, see below for an additional or alternate way to connect with alumni for a quick one-on-
one discussion.

How: THIS IS A VIRTUAL EVENT. The event will kick off with a brief welcome
session and then students will break into smaller groups and “rotate” through three
Zoom meeting rooms for 15-20 minute sub-sessions with alumni from the three career
areas, followed by a brief wrap-up session.

Please pre-register in advance at the below link to receive the Zoom meeting
invitation along with brief bios for the alumni that will be participating:
Zoom Registration Link

 

Additional Options for Connecting with Alumni

Prior to the Alumni Career Panel event, the Advisory Board is also offering options to
connect remotely with an alum for an informal, 15-minute, one-on-one discussion.
Alumni are available to take a quick look at a resume, help you prep for interacting at the career fair, offer career advice, or simply chat. Feel free to sign up for a one-on-
one call even if you cannot attend the virtual Career Panel. The AWG chapter is managing a signup sheet for one-on-one discussion slots that will occur between 3:00
– 4:20 pm EDT on September 14, 2021– sign up for a time slot HERE

AWG Trivia redux! Take a Break: Trivia Night, April 15th, 6:30 PM

Building on the resounding success of our last AWG trivia night, we will be hosting another trivia night on April 15th at 6:30pm. Our very own Trivia Master, Ben Barnes will host! The cover of $5 per person will go to support undergraduate field camp scholarships. Please venmo Adam Benfield (Adam-Benfield-3 on Venmo, i.e. the one with the giant sequoia pic), several days prior to the event. You can sign yourself and your team up here. Zoom link to follow. To ensure a margin of fairness, please limit teams to no more than 6 people.

Come one, come all! We welcome everyone: undergrad, grad, postdoc, faculty, staff, family, and friends! We look forward to the creative team names, the heckling, and – most importantly – seeing you all (virtually).





Flyer for AWG trivia night, saying 'Do you have what it takes to defeat the Freeman-Patzkowsky household? AWG tribia night on April 15th, 6:30 PM on zoom.

AWG Coffee Hour with Dr. Sara Kimming March 2 @10am

This week we will be having AWG coffee hour tomorrow, March 2 at 10 AM with our own Dr. Sara Kimming.

Sara is the Facility Director of the Laboratory for Isotopes and Metals in the Environment (LIME) in the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, Penn State University. Some of her research interests include applying non-CHONS isotopes as tracers in multiple systems including nutrient cycling, dolomite formation, and global ocean cycling. Her main research interests revolve around novel applications of mass spectrometry for environmental remediation and geochemical fingerprinting. Her research has taken her between multiple universities and a national lab in pursuit of establishing clean laboratories and mass spectrometry methods. Sara and her husband landed in State College in August of 2020.

As usual, coffee hour will be a relaxed time to talk to Sara about life, career paths, academic interests, or anything else.

Brown Bag lunch with Dr. Jesse Reimink: Feb 10 @ noon

We’re going to have our first brown bag of the semester next Wednesday (2/10) at high noon! We’ll be hosting our very own Dr. Jesse Reimink, who does science outreach as a co-host of a podcast called Planet Geo which launched last fall. We aim to discuss science outreach and communications with Jesse, as well as what it’s like to contribute to a podcast.

Planet Geo Ep 5 (can also be found on Spotify):
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1237277/5541907

Blog Article:
https://blog.bakerinstitute.org/2020/12/15/lessons-from-2020-to-avoid-future-disasters-improve-science-communication/
If you’d like to come, you can prepare by checking out a blog article on science communication as well as a recent episode of Planet Geo, both linked above. Jesse has emphasized that these materials don’t represent expert advice, but are an opinion-based springboard for our discussion.

We hope to see you there!

Colloquium Speaker ‘Coffee Hour’, Jan 19, 2021

Welcome back (virtually) for the spring semester!




We hope that everyone had an enjoyable and relaxing break and that your semester starts well! The first colloquium of the semester is tomorrow, with Dr. Jessica Tierney from the University of Arizona. Due to the time difference between PA and AZ we will be holding our first ‘coffee hour’ of the semester tomorrow from 5:30 PM – 6:15 PM (after colloquium).




Dr. Tierney’s research uses organic biomarkers, alongside climate model output, statistical approaches, and other paleoclimate data to recreate past climate conditions. As usual, this will be a relaxed hour to get to know the speakers and learn more about their career paths, research, and interests outside of academia.

 

Brown Bag Lunch Discussion: November 11 @ noon

    We are hosting a virtual brown bag lunch discussion this Wednesday (11/18) at 12pm, accessible through this Zoom link. Our brown bag series has typically been an opportunity for members of the department to lead informal discussions on various societal or institutional issues in the geosciences or broader academia, and is open for all students, staff, researchers, and faculty to participate.

 

    This week, Julia Carr and Ben Barnes will be revisiting the topic of accessibility in conferences, and framing the discussion around how virtual conferences this year have handled the new format, and what aspects of virtual conferences could be repeated following the quarantine to boost accessibility. We will anchor this discussion primarily in two recent articles: Sohn’s interviews in Nature which highlight the aspects of in-person scientific conferences that limit accessibility to many attendees, and Bailey’s recent GSA Today article enumerating the positive aspects of virtual conference formats during lockdown.

 

    In addition to these articles, you may be interested to hear more perspectives on conference accessibility: we have attached links to many resources below which give excellent advice for presenting talks and posters effectively and conscientiously.

 

All are welcome to join in our discussion this Wednesday! We look forward to seeing you there,

 

Thanks!
Julia and Ben

 

Talks:
Posters:
Both:
  • Stay color-blind friendly! Why should we care? Resources for figuring it out:
  • Viz Palette — want to see what your color scheme looks like in line, area, scatter plots, words, on different backgrounds, and check for color blindness all at once? Integrates with Chroma.js and other great color resources, and auto-generates hex color codes for your scripts. I think this is the best tool out there, and I use it all the time.
  • Paletton –have no idea where to start? Find logical combos based on color theory & export all the color tables. Good for categorical data.
  • Chroma.js Color Palette Helper — need to create perceptually uniform color gradients (sequential or diverging)?  Also auto-generates hex color codes to put into your scripts

AWG Fall Festival!

Fall Festival flyer. Says: AWG Fall Festival, Holmes-Foster Park, Sunday October 25th, 2 PM. All proceeds to support undergraduate scholarships. 10$ entry fee for a pumpkin and pizza.

What: a (socially-distanced and safe) pumpkin-spice filled afternoon that includes a pumpkin carving competition, FREE pizza, and baked goods/apple cider (for purchase for fund raising). $10 gets you a pumpkin, entry to this exclusive event, and free pizza (did we mention there will be pizza?). We will have trash disposal and *very few* pumpkin carving implements, so please bring your own if you have them (knife, spoon, etc)! Winner of the carving competitions will get a free piece of swag of their choosing!

Where: Holmes-Foster Park

When: October 25th, 2pm

How: sign up on this list and Venmo (or deliver) $10 to Shelby Bowden (Venmo username: @Shelby-Bowden) BY OCTOBER 20th!! (I have to go buy the pumpkins beforehand).

Competition categories:

-geology

-culture

-spooky

-artsy fartsy

-nature (non geology)

*COVID-safety measures: We will enforce mask wearing, social distancing, and maintaining a safe and comfortable environment for all who want to attend. We will also be sanitizing the provided pumpkins before giving them out. If you would like to support AWG and participate but don’t feel comfortable hanging out, you are welcome to still come and grab a pumpkin, carve it at home, and share photos of your creation with us!*

Brown Bag lunch discussion on being a grad student during COVID19

Brown bag lunch discussion o’clock. COVID can’t stop us from having engaging conversations about the world around us, so we will continue the tradition but virtually.  For those not familiar: Brown Bag lunch discussions are a time to talk with fellow grad students, undergraduates, faculty, staff, post-docs (whoever shows up, honestly) about all the life things that shape us as grad students, as a community, humans, etc. On the docket for discussion: I’d like to talk about “being a grad-student during COVID-19.” Beloware two links to make you think: 1) a science article about some COVID workarounds, and 2) a CE&N (chemical and engineering news) interviewing a bunch of graduate students and their experiences with COVID and grad school.
Example questions you may have after reading these articles, or just in general 1) How are grad students holding up? 2) What’s it like being a first year student during the pandemic? 3) What are you strategies for stress relief? 4) How are you able to focus on your work when you have a cat sitting beside you? 5) What can the grad school do to help?
To note: I personally don’t have any answers, but talking it out is the best way to get answers!
Above are merely some example questions, so feel free to bring your own thoughts, feelings, questions, comments, concerns, or even other literature! I’d love to talk with you, and have a great discussion. And if anyone has an immediate answer to question 4, please email me.
this FRIDAY 09/25/2020 a 12:00PM on ZOOM
Brown bags not required.
See you there!

Grad School Panel Event!

If you are someone interested in graduate school, AWG will be hosting a grad school panel event next week on Thursday, September 24th at 6pm! This will be a webinar where graduate student panelists will be available to answer any questions you may have about the application process, graduate school in general, different kinds of research, and other opportunities in Geosciences. The panelists all have different experiences and paths that they took to where they are now in the Penn State Geosciences program, and all have valuable insights to share.
Please share with anyone who may be interested!
If anyone has any questions, feel free to reach out.
Password: awg

 

Flyer for the Grad School Panel Event. Lists the zoom link for the meeting, and says to bring us your questions about grad school and other opportunities in geoscience

Welcome back ~ Fall 2020

Welcome back! AWG is still going strong, even while virtual. Our new 2020/2021 officers just met to make plans for the fall, and we’ve got a lot of events coming up, so stay tuned.

First general meeting for the semester will be September 1 at 6pm— details and zoom link coming soon!

Our Officers for 2020/2021

Erica Lucas & Julia Carr, Co-Presidents

Kalle Jahn, Treasurer

Ben Barnes, Secretary

Gabi Rossetto Harris & Kaelie Contreras, Outreach Coordinator

Katie Horisk & Kayla Irizarry, Mentor/mentee program coordinators

Charlotte Connop & Safiya Alpheus, Event Coordinators

Mary Reinthal & Troy Ferland, Social Committee

Nancy Weinheimer & Lucy Lu, Undergraduate Liason

Adam Benfield, Shelby Bowden & Kirsty McKenzie, Fundraising

Julia Carr, Webmaster

Roman DiBiase Faculty Adviser