2019 Spring Meeting
Thanks to our 2019 Spring Meeting Sponsors
The 2019 Spring SEERS Meeting will be held at the Center for Marine Science at the University of North Carolina – Wilmington on March 7-9, 2019. Dr. Devon Eulie, Assistant Professor of Natural Sciences, is our local host. Registration is now open! Please read the information below, then go to our Services website to register.
Theme
The Art of Resilience will be our special session theme. Resilience is the ability of an ecosystem to absorb a disturbance, but also to maintain the quality of its pre-disturbance structure and functions. Our challenge is applying this to coastal systems where the intersection of land and sea, and people and the environment, creates complex interactions and synergies. For coastal communities and ecosystems, we can view this through the lens of adaptability and durability. Communities and ecosystems need to be durable (resistant) to disturbance events, and able to adapt to changing baselines. The ‘art’ is in balancing the needs and resilience of communities with that of ecosystems to the benefit of both.
Preliminary Schedule
Thursday, March 7
Sponsor presentations, plenary talk, poster previews, and a hearty reception
Friday, March 8
Student Networking Breakfast
Oral Presentations
Poster Session: Posters can remain on display the entire time, although judging of student posters will occur during the late afternoon on Friday.
Banquet
Saturday, March 9
Oral Presentations
Business Meeting
Student Awards
Special Events
Plenary Speaker
Our Thursday evening plenary talk will be given by Dr. Jessica Whitehead, the coastal communities hazards adaptation specialist for North Carolina Sea Grant. She assists coastal users with integrating information about resilience to coastal weather and climate hazards into their decision-making processes. Her overall approach to her work is to facilitate collaboration among coastal decision-makers that helps them integrate adaptive environmental, social, and economic solutions to improve whole community resilience.
Whitehead’s recent projects have included exploring the intersection of water, wastewater and public health risks of storms in Morehead City, NC. She also partners with the Town of Nags Head in developing implementation priorities to make public infrastructure and resources more resilient to sea level rise over the next 10 to 30 years. She is assisting with the development of public-private partnerships to improve risk communication and disaster recovery on Hatteras Island and throughout North Carolina as the state recovers from Hurricane Florence. Recently, she has also become more interested in using the arts to improve community understanding of and engagement with resilience. She was the science interpretation advisor on the RISING exhibition, which features fine art photography by photographer Baxter Miller and oral histories of coastal change in North Carolina collected by Ryan Stancil and Barbara Garrity-Blake, informed by coastal science and integrated in a multimedia experience.
As a co-creator of the Vulnerability, Consequences and Adaptation Planning Scenarios (VCAPS) process, Whitehead has facilitated numerous participatory diagramming exercises for stakeholders to improve their resilience to coastal hazards and climate change. So far, this process has helped over 20 communities throughout the United States develop adaptation options to increase community resilience.
She is a member of the Independent Advisory Committee on Applied Climate, which is developing recommendations on how to bring local and state governments and business perspectives to the process of identifying, documenting and improving the quality, relevance and utility of climate information for decision making. She co-chairs the Science and Technical Advisory Committee of the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership and recently began a term on the American Meteorological Society’s Board of Outreach and Pre-College Education.
Prior to joining North Carolina Sea Grant, Whitehead was the regional climate extension specialist for the South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium, North Carolina Sea Grant and CISA. She earned her doctorate in geography and Master of Science degree in meteorology from the Pennsylvania State University.
Student Networking Breakfast
Are you unsure about the career paths available to you after graduating? Come to the Student Networking Breakfast that will take place around 8am (time and location will be finalized as the program is finalized) Friday. Participate in a round-robin event where students can move from table to table, while eating breakfast, and learn about the variety of career paths available in the estuarine and coastal sciences. Professional participants will range from academia to non-profits to state and federal employees. There is a question on the registration form where you can indicate your interest in participating in this event.
Friday Night Banquet
Our Friday night social will be held on the USS North Carolina (http://www.battleshipnc.com/ ), a World War II battleship that was active in almost every major Pacific naval offensive. The USS North Carolina has a long history extending past WWII as a Naval Reserves Training Ship until she was decommissioned in 1958. Thanks to the Save Our Ships program, she arrived in Wilmington at her current place in 1961. Food will be catered by favorite local restaurant, Capt’n Bill’s.
Field Trips
(Possible) Saturday Brewery Tour
The Wilmington Craft Beer Scene has exploded. The city and surrounding areas boast about a dozen craft breweries and taprooms. Perhaps extend your SEERS weekend one more night and check out the Wilmington Ale Trail with new SEERS friends: http://wilmingtonaletrail.com/. There is a question on the registration form where you can indicate your interest in participating in a brewery tour. If we have enough interest, details will be provided at a later time.
Registration
Carryover of Fall 2018 Registrations
Registrations for the cancelled 2018 Fall meeting (for which refunds were not requested at the time) will be held for the 2019 Spring meeting, with no need to re-register. If you are unsure of your registration status, please contact the SEERS secretary: secretary@seers.org.
Deadlines
Registration is now open! The deadline for early price registration, abstract submission, and student travel award applications is Friday, February 8 at 11:59 pm. After this date and time, late registrations without abstracts will be accepted until Friday, February 15 at 11:59 pm for an additional $15 per registrant. Members must be current in their dues prior to meeting registration in order to receive reduced member pricing. We no longer bundle membership and meeting registration as a single payment option: they are separate transactions.
Instructions
Our new meeting registration system can send invoices to third parties and can accommodate multiple registrations on the same invoice. In general, the invoice goes to the person who is logged in. Registration price visibility is tailored to each person who is registered for the meeting based on their status as student/professional and member/nonmember. Here are a couple of common scenarios:
A professor registers themselves and several students on one invoice: If membership needs to be paid or updated, make sure each person has done that first. For meeting registration, the professor should log in and will receive the invoice. You will be prompted again for an email address to register for the meeting. Register the first person, for example the professor. Student member pricing would not be visible for this registration. At the end, there will be a button for “new registration”. Click that to be prompted for the registration information for the second person, for example a student. If the student is already a member, student member pricing will be visible. You may register as many people as you like in this manner, and you will see the invoice accumulate all the charges. You may, of course, log in separately for each registration if you would prefer to have separate invoices.
One or more attendees are registered by an office manager who will not attend: If membership needs to be paid or updated, make sure each person has done that first. For meeting registration, the office manager or other payer should log in. If they do not have an account with us from a prior meeting, they should contact secretary@seers.org with the billing name, address, and email and request a login for this purpose. Once logged in, this person can register one or more other people for the meeting. The pricing available for each person will depend on their status as student/professional and member/nonmember. At the end of each registration, there is a button for “new registration” to add another person to the invoice. You may register as many people as you like in this manner, and you will see the invoice accumulate all the charges. You may, of course, log in separately for each registration if you would prefer to have separate invoices.
Prices
Full meeting registration prices include the Thursday evening reception with hors d’oeuvres and beverages; Friday breakfast, lunch, and evening banquet; Saturday breakfast; coffee breaks each day; and the program book. Reception-only and banquet-only tickets may be purchased individually or for guests. Members must have paid dues and be listed as Active members prior to meeting registration in order to access member pricing for the meeting. Registration is now open on our Member and Meeting Services website.
Cancellation
After registering, if you are not able to attend the meeting, we encourage you to send a substitute attendee in your place. You may substitute at any time, even on-site at the time of the meeting. If you must cancel, a refund of meeting registration (less a $10 cancellation fee) may be requested by Feb 15, 2019. No refunds will be issued for cancellation after Feb. 15, 2019. Membership dues are not refundable.
Abstract Submission
Abstracts are submitted during the registration process. Abstracts for oral or poster presentations should highlight scientific research, education, or outreach in the field of estuarine science and are limited to 250 words. SEERS generally accepts all submitted abstracts that meet these guidelines, so do not wait for abstract acceptance before registering for the meeting. If you have any questions about whether your topic meets these guidelines, please contact the program chair well ahead of the submission deadline. The deadline for abstract submission is Friday, February 8 at 11:59 pm, with no extensions.
The list of authors of the abstract are provided at the time of submission. Please format as Author 1, Institution; Author 2, Institution, and so on. Graduate student authors should be denoted with a single asterisk (*) after the respective last name, while undergraduate authors should be denoted with double asterisks (**) after the respective last name. Each abstract may be submitted only once for presentation at the conference, i.e., an abstract with multiple authors needs to have one designated presenter.
Membership
SEERS has recently changed its membership policy: starting Jan. 1, 2018, annual dues secure your membership for the 12-month period after joining rather than the calendar year. Current and recent SEERS members should already be in our database and have their renewal dates set to their last date of payment. Please LOGIN to check your profile information and renewal date and to pay dues if you need to renew. Every effort has been made to update the membership records and payment dates, but if you believe your renewal date is in error, please contact the SEERS Secretary and provide proof of payment (e.g., dated receipt from SEERS or CERF, canceled check, credit card statement).
Student Travel Awards
SEERS will offer up to five student travel awards of $150 each to qualifying students presenting at this meeting. More information and the student travel award application form, due by Friday, February 8, are available on the Student Travel page.
Presentation Guidelines
Oral
Oral presentations are limited to a 15 minute time block, which includes a 12 minute talk and 3 minutes for questions. Presentations should be prepared in a Windows compatible format (ppt, pptx, or pdf). Awards will be given for best undergraduate and graduate student oral presentations.
Poster
Maximum poster dimensions are 36″ x 48″. Awards will be given for best undergraduate and graduate student poster presentations.
Lodging
Please check back soon for announcements about room blocks at area hotels.
Sponsorship
Meeting sponsorship supports student attendance and travel to our meetings. Sponsorship inquiries can be directed to any SEERS Board member. Sponsors may sign up and pay through our Services website.
