Early Career Resources

Network With Your Peers at ASLO Meetings!

Some of the best and most up-to-date advice you can get are from other early career aquatic scientists. Society and science is different now from what it was when your professors were starting their careers. ASLO provides the opportunity to meet and discuss your career and other topics, such as balancing family and research, with others in the same situation or just a few years ahead. We strongly encourage you to take advantage of the many early career events and other activities planned for upcoming ASLO meetings.

Numerous resources are available for early career aquatic scientists, as seen below. If you have other suggestions for resources you think should be added to this section, please contact the Chair of the Early Career Committee with suggested links and a description.

Funding Programs for Early Career Researchers

European Research Council Starting Independent Researcher Grants

The ERC has a special funding program for young investigators. They apply to candidates of all nationalities for research in Europe who finished their PhD's at least two years prior but not more than ten years ago. If you are interested in finding out more, please see the web page.

The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Fellowship

The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) offers fellowships each year. The program is designed to encourage the active involvement of early career scientists in Antarctic scientific research, allowing researchers from one SCAR Member country to undertake research in an institute in another SCAR Member country.
Applicants should be either currently studying for or within five years of completing a PhD and their research should make a contribution to the objectives of one of the Scientific Research Programmes endorsed by SCAR (see their web page).
For full details of the scheme and how to apply, please see the Fellowships section of the (SCAR website).

General Resources

A white paper from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Initiative for Science, Engineering, and Technology that contains an analysis of current science funding policies in order to find ways to strengthen the impact of federal research dollars. The ARISE report addresses two issues central to the vitality of America's research enterprise: 1) the support of early-career investigators; and 2) the encouragement of high-risk, high-reward research.

Via workshops, casual meetings, forums, and an interactive website, AIMES seeks to foster collaborations among young scientists on integrative research to better understand the role of humans in perturbing biogeochemistry and climate.

A resource for beginning geoscience faculty members seeking to learn more about successfully balancing teaching, research, and other demands. The collection of resources is based on the series of annual workshops.

MentorNet is an e-mentoring network that provides protégés from many of the world's top colleges and universities with positive, one-on-one, email-based mentoring relationships with mentors from industry, government, and higher education. This network positively affects the retention and success of those in engineering, science and mathematics, particularly but not exclusively women and others underrepresented in these fields.

Resources for Women in Science

AWIS is a national advocacy organization championing the interests of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics across all disciplines and employment sectors.

AWG's purposes are to encourage the participation of women in the geosciences; exchange educational, technical, and professional information; and enhance the professional growth and advancement of women in the geosciences.

MPOWIR provides mentoring to physical oceanographers from late graduate school through their early careers, helping to reduce the barriers to career development for all junior scientists in the field, with a particular focus on improving the retention of junior women.

ESWN is a peer-mentoring network of women, mostly early career, in the Earth Sciences. Membership totals nearly 500 women spanning nine different countries, representing most major universities, government agencies, and research organizations, and including upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, professionals, and scientists.

WEBS is an annual three-day symposium aimed at addressing the retention of female scientists and issues related to the transition of women from early career stages to tenure track positions and leadership roles in academic and research settings. WEBS targets early career women in the biological sciences with an emphasis on ecology and evolutionary biology. WEBS participants are current post-docs, research scientists and assistant professors.

EMBO Reports in Vol. 8, No. 11: 975-987 (2007) include the following:

  • The women issue.
  • Falling off the academic bandwagon: Women are more likely to quit at the postdoc to principal investigator transition.
  • A persistent problem: Traditional gender roles hold back female scientists.
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