EAG Early Career Science Ambassador Adam Solon attends AGU2024 in Washington DC
Thanks to the support of the EAG Early Career Science Ambassador program I attended the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) annual Fall Meeting (2024 Washington D.C.), an international conference with over 25,000 attendees originating from around 100 different countries. As a soil microbial ecologist at Queen Mary University of London, London, UK, my research exists in the interface between soil biology and geochemistry and attending AGU 2024 provided an important opportunity to meet with fellow researchers from across the globe.
During the conference, I participated in sessions in the Biogeosciences section. I presented in the session “B53E: Land Biogeochemical Cycling Under Global Environmental Change”, with a poster entitled, “Seasonal Dynamics of Microbial Functional Diversity and Biogeochemical Cycling in an Arctic Glacial Forefield“. My presentation characterized non-linear relationships along stages of succession between the turnover of microbial communities and soil biogeochemistry (e.g., total organic carbon, total nitrogen); using metagenomics I also identified differences in the functional potential of communities across different seasons within a year. This work improves our understanding of how soil biology and chemistry interact during soil development depending on season and stage of succession and provide insight into how polar soils may respond to future climate scenarios. The questions and feedback I received discussing my research was very helpful in furthering the developing of a manuscript.
In addition to presenting, I also hosted a session serving as the primary convener of both a poster session and an oral session entitled, “B31K/B33K: Nutrient cycles under global change: microbial diversity and biogeochemical cycling”. Both sessions were well attended and featured a range of researchers from undergraduates to graduate students to post-doctoral associates to professors.
In both roles, I was able to meet and discuss research with dozens of scientists focusing on how global change is influencing critical processes in soil biogeochemical cycling. Attending conferences is important for scientists not only as a means to disseminate research but also to expand professional networks and strengthen existing ones. I was able to meet researchers working in other glacial forefields and compare findings and discuss future collaborations. I attended a few workshops for professional development learning best practices in data management, peer review, and writing funding proposals. I also was able to connect with collaborators from current and previous projects and a few old friends from my graduate school. In addition, as an ambassador I was pleased to meet the EAG representative, Marie-Aude Hulshoff, at the EAG booth in the convention center’s Exhibit Hall.
If anyone is considering attending AGU in the future, I would highly recommend it. The conference was well run and featured more interesting research than I had time to see. It is a very large conference, so one piece of advice I might offer would be to look over the schedule before the conference and try to map out your week as best you can or else it might feel a little overwhelming.
I had a great experience attending AGU and serving as an Early Career Science Ambassador for EAG. I am thankful for the support of EAG and UKRI-NERC in funding my conference attendance, my co-authors for helping me prepare my presentation, and my fellow conveners for assisting in planning and hosting our sessions.
You can find a report from another EAG early career science ambassador Bizhou Zhu who also attended AGU2024 on the EAG Blog here.
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