Make a Cool $300 (CAD) in Three Easy Steps The CAP Way

Mary Vetter, the Treasurer of the Canadian Association of Palynologists passed this message on through our mailing list:

The Canadian Association of Palynologists Annual Student Research Award was established in 2009 to recognize students’ contributions to palynological research. The award is open to any undergraduate or graduate student who is a member, in good standing, of CAP, regardless of their nationality or country of residence. The intent of the research award is to support student research with a strong palynological component. The award consists of a three-year membership in the Association and $300 CDN, to be put toward some aspect of the student’s research.

The application should consist of: 1) a one-page statement outlining the nature of the research project, its scientific importance, the approximate timeline to completion of the project, and the aspect of the research the funds would be directed toward; (2) a CV; and, (3) a letter of support from the student’s supervisor.

Applications may be submitted in French or English and should be submitted by email. Completed applications are due by March 15, 2015.

Submit applications by e-mail to Dr Francine McCarthy, CAP President (fmccarthy[at]brocku[dot]ca)

Note: Only one award will be given per year, and there will be no limit to the number of times a student can submit an application.

Joining the Canadian Association of Palynologists is fairly straightforward, you can get an application here, and you don’t even need to be a Canadian. With membership you get the twice yearly newsletter, an opportunity to join us at our annual meetings and the chance to join a small, but friendly group of researchers who are interested in all things small, organic walled and fossilized.

If you know any students who might be interested please pass this along. Thanks!

GSA Sessions and Scholarship Information

I’ve been a member of the Canadian Association of Palynologists for several years now, both as a student member and now as a member of the Executive. We are a small society but we have been very active over the past few years, hosting sessions at various conferences and producing a great (open access!) newsletter (back-issues here). Alwynne Beaudoin (who you may remember from an earlier post here) has also curated a fantastic website for CAP.

One recent initiative has been the creation of a graduate scholarship. The deadline is coming up, so please consider submitting an application:

The Canadian Association of Palynologists Annual Student Research Award was established in 2009 to recognize students’ contributions to palynological research. The award is open to any undergraduate or graduate student who is a member, in good standing, of CAP, regardless of their nationality or country of residence. The intent of the research award is to support student research with a strong palynological component. The award consists of a three-year membership in the Association and $300 CDN, to be put toward some aspect of the student’s research.
The application should consist of: 1) a one-page statement outlining the nature of the research project, its scientific importance, the approximate timeline to completion of the project, and the aspect of the research the funds would be directed toward; (2) a CV; and, (3) a letter of support from the student’s supervisor.

Applications may be submitted in French or English and should be submitted by email. Completed applications are due by March 1.

Applications or questions concerning the award should be sent to the CAP President, Dr. Francine McCarthy (fmccarthy[at]brocku[dot]ca), by March 1 2014.

From the CAP Website

In addition to the scholarship, CAP is also hosting a session at GSA 2014 in Vancouver, BC. The session, titled “Palynology in Geoarcheological and Environmental Studies” is one of the technical sessions that you will be able to submit to this year. Please consider it when you submit your abstract this year (deadline is July 29^th!).

Guest post: What skills do you wish you learned? What skill should you impart?

Recently on CAGList, the mailing list for the Canadian Association of Geographers an early career researcher asked established researchers  what kind of training  they wish they had obtained as grad students and post-docs.  Alwynne Beaudoin, adjunct Professor at the University of Alberta, curator of Quaternary Environments at the Royal Alberta Museum and active member of the Canadian Association of Palynologists, posted an excellent reply.

I asked her if it would be okay to post it here (and she’s agreed), because I think it speaks to the heart of what many of us are beginning to realize:  Our ‘hard skills’ training is often excellent, but the soft skills that make our lives much more manageable and enjoyable, and can play a significant role in your career development both inside and outside academia.

The Palynological Databases workshop at the AASP meeting in San Francisco, October 19 – 20.

This year there is a mega-meeting (relatively) of paleo-societies in San Francisco.  This is the 46th annual meeting for the Palynological Society (AASP-TPS), but also the annual meeting for Dino10, the Canadian Association of Palynologists (CAP), the North American Micropaleontology Section of SEPM (NAMS), and Commission Internationale de la Microflore du Paléozoïque (CIMP).

At this meeting I’ll be working with Eric Grimm and Simon Brewer to help run a workshop on the use of paleoecological databases in quantitative research.  In particular we focus on the Neotoma Paleoecological Database, and the package neotoma for R.  I’ve been revising the package since I first publicized it here, and it does some really amazing things now , so it would be great to train people to use it (particularly early-career researchers!) and get feedback for improvement.