Professional Development

If you are an early- or mid-career scientist, or a mentor to one, you may benefit from ASLO’s professional development resources. Here you will find career advice for researchers in the aquatic sciences, information about types of careers, and perspectives on the pertinent issues facing early- and mid- career scientists today. For current job and training opportunities, be sure to check out our Career Center.

Professional development materials on the ASLO website originate with the Student Resources and Activities Committee, Early Career Committee, Teaching and Mentoring Committee, and the Communications Office, among others. Your suggestions are very welcome!

Online Conversations for Equity, Action, and Networking in Marine Sciences (OCEAN)

By Adrienne Sponberg | September 4, 2020

Guest post by Kelly Luis OCEAN is a webinar series committed to amplifying early-career Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) working in marine environments. OCEAN is a pilot initiative hosted by the School for the Environment Graduate Student Anti-Racism Taskforce at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and is funded by Woods Hole Sea Grant. The OCEAN webinar series invites early-career BIPOC in New England to present the fullness of their …

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Writing with Peer Support Is More Fun

By Communications | May 11, 2020

By Bridget Deemer With summer fieldwork and a semester packed full of classes, there were lots of excuses to avoid writing during the beginning of my graduate work.  Writing about your science can often feel like something to leave for the end.  Waiting until you know the punchline may make some sense from a framing perspective, but you can always tweak things later.  Writing at least parts of your paper …

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Looking for Possible Career Paths – Consulting as an Option

By Communications | April 28, 2020

By Eilea Knotts Have you heard about consulting as a possible career path? Have you asked the questions, “am I a good candidate to go into consulting”, “what are the pros and cons”, and “how do I start a consulting business”? The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) recently uploaded a course module titled, How Consulting Works. The module’s instructor is Dave Koger, who has over 30 years of consulting experience. This …

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Keeping Yourself Focused: The Benefits of Writing a Professional Development Plan

By Communications | January 7, 2020

By Brittany Schieler One of my favorite television series of the early 2000’s was “Friday Night Lights.” On the show, a charismatic high school football coach dramatically recites the team’s motto before big moments: “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.” To this I day I still find myself repeating this mantra. The pithy saying has a lot of relevance beyond high school sports. For many of us, it is our passion, or …

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Writing Effective Abstracts and Summaries Webinar

By Adrienne Sponberg | October 23, 2019

by Adrienne Sponberg   One of my favorite things about ASLO is the way the society values participation by early career researchers and students (watch for an upcoming post on this!). This month, two of our programs for early career students collaborated on a recent webinar. The webinar was sponsored by the NSF-funded Limnology and Oceanography Research Exchange (LOREX) program. LOREX provides training in international research collaboration for graduate students. …

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Writing effective titles, abstracts, and summaries

By Communications | April 5, 2019 | 0 Comments

By Laura Falkenberg and Kelsey Poulson-Ellestad Journal articles are the key means of communicating scientific research. Unfortunately, academic texts are often characterized by a complicated writing style and abundance of jargon, which reduces clarity and effectiveness. This is particularly problematic for authors with a goal to make their work accessible to, and get it noticed by, researchers from different fields. Achieving these goals requires thoughtful writing. To start addressing these …

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Tips for preparing a successful presentation

By Communications | February 16, 2019

Below are some tips for successful presentations prepared by the ASLO Student Resources Committee. We hope you find this useful as you prepare for the 2017 Aquatic Sciences Meeting! Submitting the Title and Abstract Your presentation needs an attention grabbing, short title. If possible, incorporate the key result or a provocative question to draw in potential audience members. The abstract is a concise summary of the research that will be …

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Hollywood tips for initiating collaboration, Part 2

By Communications | October 18, 2018

By Edna Fernandez-Figueroa Have you ever felt overwhelmed when approaching a potential research advisor, employer, or collaborator? Many of us struggle to communicate how our research interests and skills complement our potential collaborator’s expertise in a short and enthusiastic written introduction.  ASLO is excited to share some tips and tricks on how to create the perfect written (and video!) introduction for your future research collaboration, as part of our new Limnology and Oceanography …

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Hollywood tips for initiating collaboration, Part 1

By Communications | October 18, 2018

By Edna Fernandez-Figueroa Continuing a collaboration stretching back to the 2008 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Orlando, these sessions brought the storytelling wisdom of Hollywood to aquatic scientists! Communication expert, author, and improv actor Brian Palermo leads three different sessions aimed at helping scientists from all career stages understand the value of communicating science through stories. Each session has a different focus, so attendees are encouraged to attend as many as …

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How to ‘revise and resubmit’: advice from journal Editors

By Communications | March 28, 2018

By Laura J. Falkenberg In the initial post in this series, I summarised the presentation on manuscript submission given by Pat Soranno (Editor-in-Chief, ASLO’s Limnology and Oceanography: Letters) and Robert Pincus (Editor-in-Chief, AGU’s Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems) at the 2018 Ocean Sciences Meeting. Here, I will focus on a key point explored in the ensuing discussion, specifically the issue of how to effectively resubmit a manuscript and the associated ‘response to …

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