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Research Prospects at Earth Science Conference

  • Eleanor Dowd '19 presents her research at the 2016 American Geophysical Union's Fall Meeting in San Francisco, C.A.

  • Eleanor Dowd '19 displays her research on the impacts of a 2011 Chilean eruption on West Antarctica. 

  • The American Geophysical Union's Fall Meeting takes place in San Francisco, C.A. 

Attending the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco was an extremely valuable experience for me. I was given the opportunity to present the Earth Sciences research that I had been conducting as a Sophomore Scholar; I was presenting evidence of the impact of a 2011 Chilean volcanic eruption on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide. The meeting was the largest gathering of earth and planetary scientists in the world, with over 25,000 scientists present. It was marvellous to see the wide variety of scientific research being conducted, and also witnessing the importance of fine details within the fields. I presented in the first poster session of the conference, alongside other ice scientists, and it was valuable to hear feedback on my research and to discuss the work with more experienced scientists.

I spent the remainder of the week attending lectures, talks and other poster sessions which were extremely interesting and I learned a lot from the people presenting in their specific fields. I was also able to meet a lot of other students and faculty, which provided me with an insight in what a future in earth science research could look like, and it made me excited about the prospect of continuing to pursue research at graduate school. I had never been to an academic conference before and so it was a valuable experience to see what it entails and I was able to take advantage of the gathering of academics to meet new people and to see what opportunities there were in certain fields. I would like to express my gratitude to the Rocky Mini-Grant fund for making attending AGU possible and for allowing me to receive feedback on my research, which I shall be continuing in the coming terms.

- Submitted by Eleanor Dowd '19, Rockefeller Mini-Grant Recipient 

The Rockefeller Center's Mini-Grants program funds registration fees for students attending conferences, as well as the costs of bringing guest speakers to Dartmouth. The views and opinions expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the Rockefeller Center or constitute an endorsement by the Center.