2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting

Annette Wilson

Earth and Ocean Sciences & The Ryan Institute

 
2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
The 2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting took place in Honolulu, Hawaii and was a truly inspirational experience that I am extremely grateful to The Challenger Society for assisting in making my attendance possible. The meeting included over 5,000 oral and poster presentations. The 2014 OSM was exceptionally well organized with its own conference app and 12 concurrent sessions, covering all aspects and disciplines of ocean sciences running all day over the six day conference. The keynote speakers were more than inspiring, with emotional, moving and refreshing talks, particularly from Elizabeth Kapu’uwailami Lindsey, the first Polynesian explorer and female fellow in the history of the National Geographic Society, Robert Richmond, the very humours “Dr.Doolittle” inspired coral reef and climate change Research Professor and Director of the University of Hawaii and Roger Hanlon, a diving biologist and cephalopod expert whom I had previously seen on TED talks!

This was my first international conference to speak at and I gave an oral presentation on my PhD research on ‘Nepheloid Layers in the Whittard Canyon, North East Atlantic” at the Submarine Canyons: Oceanographic Conditions, Geological Features, and Ecological Settings session. I was extremely nervous all week in anticipation of my talk as it was on the last day but it felt fantastic giving my talk. I really enjoyed it, which I had not expect and my work was well received with questions and very useful feedback from other scientists after the session. It was amazing to be in a room of people that were interested in my work. The whole experience has motivated me and illuminated possible future avenues for my work.

A sincere thank you to The Challenger Society for Marine Science.

Annette Wilson,
Earth and Ocean Sciences & The Ryan Institute,
School of Natural Sciences,
NUI Galway,
Ireland.