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October 1, 2019

Attendees (9):

Rob Sohn, Julie Huber, Stefan Sievert, Frieder Klein, Susan Humphris, Matt Palanza, Connor Ahearn, Ken Kostel, Vivian Mara

This month’s meeting focused on how to best format the meetings going forward and how to increase interest and attendance. The group decided that it would be beneficial to meet on a regularly scheduled day during the month. Upcoming meetings will happen on the first Tuesday of every month going forward for now. The next meeting is planned for November 5, 2019.

Topics of Discussion:

Geodynamics Seminar:

Attendees discussed the possibility of presenting a theme for the upcoming Geodynamics Seminar in the spring of 2020 and the consensus was to focus more on the group meetings/seminars for now and possibly work towards a theme for 2021 in the future.

Attracting more attendees:

Ideas regarding how to better advertise the Group, get the WHOI community excited, and increase attendance for future meetings were presented, such as:

  • Posting a science focused question in headlines that also focuses on societal impact to increase interest
  • Posting a Science focused question that might have an engineering solution in hopes of building synergy between engineering and scientific staff
  • Swag!!! (Fluid Underground logo stickers, mugs, or shirts) offered at meetings
  • Creating meeting titles for headlines that appeal to the various disciplines here at WHOI
  • More frequent meeting outreach via email, headlines, and flyers

How to format upcoming meetings:

Attendees discussed the importance of presenting themes for upcoming meetings that would interest WHOI employees in all departments with the hope of creating an engaging forum for scientific, technical, and engineering staff members that could bring future collaborations to fruition.

The idea of meeting more frequently and/or less frequently, depending on how the next couple of meetings flow was discussed. For now, monthly meetings will take place on the first Tuesday of every month.

Future meeting/seminar ideas included:

  • Speakers that could present ideas that focused on basic and applied research
  • Science topics with a societal impact
  • “Speed dating” for scientific and engineering staff to give folks a chance talk about their work/research in the hopes of forming collaborations
  • Seminars that include speakers from the engineering community as well as research
  • A causal journal club that would ask folks to review a favorite journal, or paper so they could brainstorm different approaches to the science details in said article (similar to Tiny Teas)
  • Round table discussions that offer people a chance to talk about what they are excited about in their field
  • Lunch and Learns that would offer the opportunity for people to talk about what instrumentation they are using for measurements and ideas on how to improve them
  • 5-minute presentations with a Q&A discussion for 15 minutes before moving on to another topic
  • Observatory technology and its application to science

The meeting shortly after 4PM. Fluid Underground Chairs will work to formulate the title and theme for the November 5th meeting and plan to present that to the group via email by October 14th.