InterPore2018: Student Affairs Committee activities

In response to the excellent participation in the previous years, the Student Affairs Committee (SAC) will organize a set of activities this year during the InterPore meeting in New Orleans. There will be a career event, a fun interactive game brought by our partners from Perspectivity and a social night out. Additional details below and via this link.

Questions can be addressed to Marcel Moura from the Student Affairs Committee: sac@interpore.org.

Career development event

A common doubt that occurs to many students is what are the possible career pathways to follow after one finishes the PhD. Should I pursue an academic career? Should I search for possibilities in industry/governmental agencies? What are the pros (and cons) of each career path? What does life-after-PhD feel like? In this event we will have the opportunity to hear from three established professionals who have followed very different career paths. The focus is not on their particular scientific/industrial achievements, but more on the important choices they made that took them to where they are now and on what inspired/motivated them to make those choices. After a brief presentation by each participant, the audience will have the opportunity to ask questions.

Interactive game: the Stress Nexus Challenge

Following the great success of the “Energy Transitions Challenge” in the previous meeting in Rotterdam, our partners from Perspectivity have agreed to collaborate with the organization of another game this year, the “Stress Nexus Challenge”.

The interconnected challenges at the nexus of energy, water and food will strongly shape the future. This creates new and sustained turbulences requiring innovation to make our societies more resilient. The population of the world is growing and people live longer on average. This is causing increased pressure on the planet’s available resources. Water is becoming a scarce commodity in many locations across the globe. Space is limited to feed the whole world if food demand keeps rising. Also, there is an increasing pressure on energy, because traditional resources are depleting and green energy is not yet optimally usable or fully supported.

How would you balance the nexus of water, food and energy? Step into the shoes of those who make the decisions for the whole planet: Play the Stress Nexus Challenge!

During this game we will tackle the dilemmas that shape the future of energy, water and food. We play a world where we can experiment with innovative and collaborative approaches to make our society as resilient as possible. In that way, you learn to understand these systems and your role within them. The game is restricted to PhD students or early career researchers with a maximum of 3 years since the completion of the PhD. Only a limited number of spots are available and a confirmation of participation and additional information will be further sent to the participants by email.

Night out!

Experience from the previous years has shown that a good informal night out is the best way to build new links between researchers (and strengthen the old links too)! So, quite simply, we will get together and move to one (or more) of the excellent bars/clubs that New Orleans has to offer. Additional information will be forwarded later by email to the participants.