 Good morning. Oh, it's fast. Good morning, everyone. There we go. Thank you. My name is Rebecca Hacker. I work here at NCAR. I run one of the postdoc programs called the advanced study program and on behalf of the entire organizing committee I'm so pleased to welcome all of you and here for this workshop and I would love to see show of hands who actually flew in or traveled in for this event. Welcome to Boulder. Everybody who sits next to somebody who just raised their hands, please shake their hand and say welcome to Boulder. Come on. Get to know each other. Very nice. Thank you. So we are very excited to host this workshop for you. It's the first one of this kind that we have organized here at NCAR for you and this could not have been possible without this large organizing committee that is listed here and before I do anything else I would really like to acknowledge everyone who helped organize this. So could you please stand up a wave if you were on the organizing committee? There we have. Come on, get up. And with us here just to let you know who we have. So we have Carolyn Brinkworth, the Director of Diversity, Education and Outreach together with Menda Adams who will speak to us in a second from the NSF. The two of them actually cooked up this whole idea. It was their brainchild and so we're very thankful for that. We also have Marissa Miller who works, yeah, who's hiding back there who is Carolyn's assistant and was so helpful. Melanie Russ, many of you, especially those of you who traveled, were involved with her for the logistics. Paula Fisher is the administrator of the ASP program and helped a lot organizing this. And who am I forgetting? Jen Kay is with us here. She's at CEO Boulder and will speak to you in a second as well. And then of course, we have to mention Val Sloan who is kind of the brain behind this whole operation and none of this would have happened without her lining up over 50 speakers and getting this agenda together. So to let you know how this all came about, I mentioned that earlier the NSF and Carolyn thought about it would be really, really helpful to do a little bit more than training you all, becoming the most amazing scientists that you are and becoming faculty and teachers. We also really would love to help you a little bit more with your career development because we heard from all of you that that's something you really want it. And so when we designed this workshop, we went about it as we are scientists in collecting data first. And so we sent out surveys and we would really love to acknowledge all of you who answered the surveys and gave us a lot of input in what you would love to see if we hosted this workshop. So one of the survey questions you all got was which areas of your professional development are the most difficult to manage. And I want to thank you for being so incredibly honest and really giving us your insights into what you need. And one of the things you mentioned that's not a huge surprise was how do I get a faculty position? Everything from networking and interviewing to salary and lab space negotiations was high on your list. Other things was how do I even get started on writing grand proposals or how do I become a mentor? How do I collaborate with my colleagues more? This one came up over and over and when I speak individually to all of you, I hear this quite a bit. How do I get any work done as a postdoc if I'm already supposed to find a job? Right? Because flying to interviews and doing all of that. This one came up as well. How do I navigate actually planning my future and my career if I'm in a dual career couple? And work-life balance is probably the most mentioned word in all of the surveys. So you're all incredibly overworked. I hear that. And so I thank you for being here for three days because I think you all have anxiety attacks internally because you're not working on your research today. So thank you for taking that time and being here anyway. We also ask you what kind of training or mentoring what you say is most helpful. What should we do if we organize this workshop? And again the top hit was learning how to navigate the academic world. And then others said how do I get out of this? How do I actually transition out of academia? And so it is one of my goals is that we make it okay to talk about not wanting to stay or go into academia. You will see that we organize speakers for you who work in research, who work in the private industry. And we want to have honest conversations about that as well. In terms of what type of training you wanted, you ask for actual hands-on training. So less lectures and more stuff that we get to do with actual examples. This one was a big one. How do I let go of perfectionism? And so we can certainly have a conversation about that. And I love the last point, knowing that I'm not alone dealing with all of this. So many of you mentioned can we just have a conversation and can we see what other people are doing. So that was one thing we did. We surveyed all of you. We actually also surveyed former postdocs, people who now just made the transition into the workforce. And we asked them what type of training would you have liked to have back in the day? And so all of that fed into how we organized the agenda. We also did a little bit of digging into data. And this is just one graphic to represent that. But we looked into where are people going nowadays. And this is just data from the program IRON. But we looked at it for all disciplines. And so if you look at the agenda that you have in your handout that Melanie gave you when you just arrived. Can you take it out? I feel like back when I'm teaching. Take out worksheet one. Good. So you will see what we try to do based on all of your feedback is to really build an agenda around what you want. So you will always see that in the top categories that you mentioned around proposal writing, publishing, getting a job, mentoring students, diversity, and then interviewing for jobs. Those are addressed by panels of experts followed by breakout groups. So you will see there's a certain rhythm in the agenda. We'll always have first a conversation, all of us together. And then we have breakout groups where we actually do hands on work. Does that make sense? And as we go into the breakouts, each time one of us from the organizing committee will explain how we are breaking out. So there's a system to the whole thing. It's all socially engineered how you will work in groups together. Okay? That sound good? Okay. And one thing that we are also trying to do in the next two and a half days is show you by modeling it to your techniques that you might want to use one day in your classrooms, in your lecture halls, or if you lead teams. So forgive us when we make you do kind of goofy stuff because you might think it's a bit weird for me, but you actually might one day remember it and then use it in your own classroom. So if you're ready, I want to try out one little game on all of you. You're ready? This is the interactive part of my talk. Any workshop, any summer program, anything I run, I usually believe that it's good if we have a couple of ground rules or common values, how we want to treat each other for the next couple of days. And I will propose three values or ground rules to all of you. And then after each one that I propose, we will vote thumbs up or down if we can live with it. Okay? The first one that I would like to propose is to be kind. And what I mean with that is to be kind to yourself. This is three days. Some of you already pointed out to me that the agenda is pretty packed. So yes, this will be exhausting. Please take care of yourself. We're all adults. Take breaks as you need them, stand up, move around, lay on the floor. We don't mind at all. All of you who flew in from outside of Boulder, please drink a lot of water. And if you sit next to someone who is visiting us, you are now responsible for that person and need to make sure they drink a lot of water. Because we don't want them to get dehydrated. Coffee doesn't count. Coffee doesn't count. And Caroline included in your folders a handout about our facilities. And so if there's anything you need to be comfortable and safe here, please reach out to us. Caroline and I were all around so you can ask us about that. So can I see a vote up or down if you're okay being kind to yourself while you're here? I would be really worried if anybody voted down. Okay, thank you. And because I'm a really complex person and difficult person, this is my next value. Be kind. Be kind to the presenters. So as I said earlier Valerie organized over 50 presenters and facilitators for you. They are all volunteering that time. We have people, pretty amazing people including a U.S. professor of the year giving you training on teaching. So all I'm asking is that we're participating. A lot of this is built on Q and A's and in the breakout sessions that we participate. So please be kind to the people that volunteer that time and spend time with us. Can we vote on that? Up or down? Good, thank you. And the next one, you're very smart people so you should know what the next value is. Come on, shout it out. Be kind. Yes, it's pretty easy. It's easy to remember. Be kind to each other. And I truly ask you to do that. I know you are. I saw you chatting over breakfast. So I'm not worried that you will leave somebody sitting alone in a corner. But there is another component to this. A lot of breakout groups will do a lot of pair share. And I think we want to be honest with each other. And if for example for myself I want to say, I don't really know if I want to live in academia. I want to be able to say that without feeling judged. Or I might want to say, I'm really interested in this position that XYZ company is offering. They require a lot of field work. And I have a disability. And I'm not sure if I should disclose this in an interview or not. You all give me a suggestion. But if I'm not really feeling safe to talk about that, I won't say it. And then I don't get as much out of the workshop. So if we can agree that we'll be open with each other and not judge each other. No matter what we say, I think we could have a really cool workshop. So can we vote on that? Are you comfortable with that? You're an awesome group. Thanks Lawrence. Thank you very much. So this is my first little activity. It's a little goofy for yourself. But you can really use this in classrooms or when you manage a team or if you have a workshop of your own. And now this was my part of this. And now it is actually my great pleasure to introduce the important people to this workshop. I mentioned earlier this workshop was the brainchild of Carolyn Brinkworth and Amanda Adams at the National Science Foundation. And she is also the lead in sponsoring this whole event for all of you. And so it's my great pleasure to introduce her to all of you. She is the director, the program director for education and cross-discipline activities for the Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences Division. She used to be a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and is also on the board of directors for the Earth's Women's Science Network. And I really think I'm going to call on her in the work-life balance session because I just found out she's also writing a textbook on atmospheric dynamics. I have no idea how she does it all. But I'm really, really, I'm so appreciative that she is here today not only supporting this workshop but will participate as a facilitator and speaker in many of the sessions. So please welcome Amanda. Good morning. It's nice to see all of you. I think some of the programs that are, have been funded on PRFs because the AGS PRFs is one of the programs that I have management responsibilities on and I mostly make people unhappy by declining them. So it's really happy to, nice to be in a room of people that we've made happy by funding them. And at NSF we actually take post-docs very seriously. A couple years ago due to the America Compete Act we began requiring that all proposals that have a post-doc in the budget include a post-doc mentoring plan. And this has been an adjustment for the scientific community. We get a lot of questions on what actually goes in a post-doc mentoring plan. And it's something that we look at in all of those proposals. It's something that we run panels. We ask the panelists specifically can you comment on that post-doc mentoring plan and what you think about it. So it's something that at the foundation we take very seriously and not just that we're funding post-docs but that we're helping aid in their development in any way that we can. And thinking about coming to this workshop it reminded me of a story from when I was a post-doc and I did my post-doc in Canada and one time when I was coming back from the US there was an issue with my work permit and I ended up spending three hours in the immigration office at the airport. They were threatening to put me back on a plane to the US. And I remember at one point the immigration officer actually said to me you know you can't just do one year post-docs forever. And I remember having this like crisis of thinking oh my gosh even the immigration officers in Canada are concerned about my career trajectory. And so I bring that because I think as a post-doc people a lot of times want to talk about oh it's the best time of your life but I actually found I loved my post-doc but it's also a time of a lot of anxiety because you're always being asked what's next and you're trying to figure out what's next and even if you know what's next you don't know how to get to where it's next. There's a lot of uncertainty trying to figure out what I want to do, where I want to go, do I have the skills to go there and one thing I've also discovered the more I talk to people who are further along their career than me everyone always tells me well I didn't really take a normal path which has just convinced me that there is no normal path and everyone kind of finds their own way and I just really hope with this workshop that we just help to give you guys some of the skills to try and find your own path in a way that you can be happy and successful and fulfilled in your career. So thank you. Thank you, Amanda. And our next speaker to give some welcome and remarks is Jen Kay. I mentioned earlier she was on our organizing committee. She just made the transition that a lot of you are looking for from a post-doc into a faculty position. She is here at CU Boulder and the first time I met her was actually over email and she sent me a link of her observing polar bears and I thought oh my god she has the coolest job in the world and I absolutely want to meet her so very selfishly we asked her to give a couple of welcoming remarks to all of you. Please welcome Jen Kay. So just to be clear that just took about seven years. So I was a post-doc at NCAR for two years and that was a very very busy time and then at the end I applied for some jobs I didn't end up getting a faculty job I wanted to stay in the end at NCAR and that was a huge part of what launched my career I think. NCAR was a great place for me to spend a little bit more time to get more experience in research and by the time I was ready to apply for faculty jobs again I applied for one and it was at CU and I got it and it was really night and day between the first time I applied and the second time I applied. My motivations were very different. The first time I was just scared and I was looking for a job and I was just like oh I gotta find a job I'm gonna apply for everything possible and I didn't really have a motivation for why I was doing what I was doing right. Like the second time I applied I was like okay yeah I got my research program I really want to work with students I see like this other revenue for like how I want to live my life and do science and educate and you know I just encourage you guys to you know be kind to yourselves I really liked that and also just be honest with yourself too you know spend time doing the things that you love and tell your story that's really important I think you'll find that there's a big transition from being a postdoc and being a grad student where you know it's all about okay get this research done get this research done if you don't tell your story well of your research you're not gonna be able to succeed into the next phase of life whether that's being a research scientist transitioning out of academia or you know being a professor at CU it's funny my voice is wavering I think it's because I remember very well where you guys are all sitting and I just wish you a lot of luck and please come talk to me if you ever you know have questions about things I'm now kind of seen kind of both sides of this but I'm young enough to remember where you guys are sitting now so good luck and yeah oh two other things I think that things that I've seen go really wrong in interviews that I just want to mention quickly one is having the right level of confidence so you need to be confident when you go into something but you can't be arrogant there's a fine line there so find that line and the second one is really tell your story you all are very accomplished you wouldn't be where you are now without that and the things that are gonna help you succeed are really telling your story so those are my two pieces of advice okay thanks bye thank you Jen and thanks for the clarification on the just so I didn't know the just was seven years but and our last speaker to give welcoming remarks is actually our director Dr. Jim Hurl he's been the NCAR director since 2013 before that he was the director of a couple of different groups and divisions here at NCAR including Nestle and the CGD and he can talk about that a little bit in detail he's a great supporter of postdocs and postdoctoral training here at NCAR and I think just a couple years ago he was a postdoc himself and so maybe he can share his experiences of how he got this job as NCAR director how that worked from postdoc to NCAR director in just a few years so please welcome Dr. Jim Hurl well thank you very much Rebecca and welcome to everyone who is here today and I'll make some comments along those lines and you've already received some very nice introductions and very nice welcomes and so I'll try to build on that a little bit so as Rebecca said my name is Jim Hurl and I think in my case it's about a factor of three and a half over what Jen said I've been here about 25 years and it's my great pleasure to welcome all of you to Boulder to the National Center for Atmospheric Research and to our center green campus here we're truly very excited and I truly applaud the concept behind and all of the work that's gone on in preparing for this workshop I think it's going to be critically important and very valuable to you I'm very impressed that as I understand it there's about 70 postdoctoral scientists in the audience today at this first ever career development workshop for postdoctoral scientists those 70 are supported by National Science Foundation funds come from the earth sciences the ocean sciences and the atmospheric and geospace divisions at NSF and while I realize that some of you are local and some of you are indeed here at NCAR you have traveled to come here and as Rebecca was saying all of you are taking time away from your research you're taking time away from family and friends to be here so thank you very much for making that decision to come I'm very convinced that this is going to be a very useful and a productive workshop for you to attend and I also think that NCAR is a very appropriate place to host this workshop and to give my normal introductory spiel about NCAR and all of the work that we do here I will just say that if you're not familiar NCAR was established in 1960 it is NSF's largest and oldest federally funded research and development center or FFRDC and back in 1960 as well as today we have a mission to not only do great research in the community in terms of research and innovation but also to serve the community through major observing and community modeling facilities as well as computational facilities data analysis, data storage and the like our program is guided by a strategic plan and since Rebecca reminded us to be kind to one another I'm not going to ask you to look at that strategic plan although I will say of NCAR I'd encourage you to take a look but what I wanted to say about that plan is that you will see in that plan we have a number of what we call imperatives things we think are foundational to the center things that we must do and one of those is devoted to a description of our efforts in educating and in training a talented and a diverse group of students and early career professionals for a strong postdoctoral research program at NCAR so for that reason it's wonderful to be able to host this workshop currently at NCAR across all of our labs and programs we have about 40 postdoctoral scientists as I said several of which are attending this workshop here today and they play a critically important role in our program but what I really wanted to say this morning is that it's a long career path it turns out that I came to NCAR not just a couple of years ago I came 25 years ago it's amazing how fast the time goes but I came as a postdoctoral researcher in what is now known as our climate and global dynamics laboratory and thinking back to those years and thinking to the discussions that I still have today with our postdoctoral researchers one of the things that has got to become a postdoctoral researcher there's quite a few of my colleagues 25 years ago and I think the same is true today who seem to know what their passion was in the science and what they wanted to do maybe from high school or even earlier I certainly know a number of people who were fascinated in childhood at things like tornadoes or hurricanes or severe weather and wanted to learn more about that but they may not have found their niche until graduate school and greatly influenced and then I think a relatively a large percentage of folks were just like me and that is I basically had no plan I was on this curvy road I was looking for opportunities as they presented themselves and it seems like my path was always changing and I think that's okay as well and as Rebecca said I don't want to go into a lot of detail about my background but just a little bit more about that I was a graduate student at Purdue University in the atmospheric sciences department there at Purdue and I went to Purdue to get a master's degree because I'd done an internship at the national weather service office forecasting office in Indianapolis, Indiana and I thought that was a pretty cool career choice and I thought maybe I can be a national weather service forecaster to pursue that so I went to Purdue to get my master's degree but before I graduated with my master's degree my major professor was giving me a ride home one day he said you know Jim I'd like it if you'd stay on with us to pursue a PhD I'd really like you to be part of my research program well to this day I'm not convinced that he asked that because I was such an outstanding scholar I think it had more to do with the fact that I was a fairly talented baseball player and the bowling team the golfing team and the softball team for the atmospheric science department at Purdue was a top priority and my major professor played on all three he loved to compete against the other schools and the like so I'm still not convinced I was asked to stay on for my PhD because I was such an outstanding student but rather I added something to those teams but regardless what it did in my mind was then changed my focus well maybe I don't want to still a big part of me wonders what that career option would have been like but I started to think more about my training as a PhD student at Purdue and then I was going back to where I went as an undergraduate student and that was a smaller university and I thought you know I don't know about this whole research field I really like being around students I like the academic atmosphere I think maybe I'll be an atmospheric science professor but it was a smaller university a teaching school yeah that's what I want to do so off I went I was doing my PhD get my degree began to look at smaller schools just when I knew that was my path forward just when I knew that was my calling in life the phone rang I still remember back in those days I was drafting my own figures for my thesis and I was sitting in my lab doing that as a professor at Purdue so they had been having some conversations and before I knew it I was being offered a postdoctoral research position at NCAR so once again okay we'll go that route we'll check out what is this NCAR all about I'd actually never been to NCAR there was a picture of NCAR in the hallway at Purdue and outside of that picture I didn't know anything about it so dual career couple we made some tough choices at NCAR and then I won't bore you with the rest of the story over what the last 25 years is entailed but it's been a fantastic experience and somehow I find myself standing here now as the director of NCAR I think the bottom line is I was never certain what was going to happen next and I adjusted and I took advantage of opportunities and that involves things like networking and the like so I think it's a very healthy aspect and that is something that I certainly felt that I had in common with postdoctoral researchers 25 years ago and I think is the same case in this room today what is the best way what is the career path how do you make these decisions how do you distinguish yourself from maybe the research that you're doing as part of your PhD thesis and now postdoctoral positions how to write successful proposals and the like and the agenda for this workshop that those are the topics and the discussions that you'll be having this week so finally in closing I just want to echo some of the comments that have been made I really want to thank Manda and the National Science Foundation for supporting this workshop and I'd like to thank that long list of people that were on the opening slide and we went around the room I'm very glad that they had an opportunity to introduce themselves one of the best parts of being the devotion and the passion that everyone here feels towards these kinds of activities so Rebecca, Carolyn, Paula all the people that were called out thank you so much for all of your hard work and effort in putting this together so with that I wish you all a very productive workshop and thank you so much for coming thank you Jim with this we would love to transition over to the first panel we have a couple minutes do whatever else you need to do while we get set up with the panelists and we want to start at 9.10 with the panel about proposal writing thank you