Rough Schedule

Plan to arrive Monday, September 28 for dinner and socializing. This year’s workshop is 2 full days, at 5 pm on Wednesday, September 30. We will have around 45–40 talks that cover all aspects of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet system or other marine ice-sheet systems, including research from glaciologists, oceanographers, atmospheric scientists, biologists, computer scientists, and engineers at all career stages. Following each set of oral presentations, a panel (the session’s speakers) and the moderator will lead an open discussion about the general theme, and examine what the significance of new insights presented in the talks is for WAIS and other marine ice-sheet systems. This open, engaged discussion helps identify the core research directiosn for our community.

In addition to talks, WAIS will have space for about 20–30 posters. There will be an opportunity to give a very brief overview of a poster topic to the audience just prior to the poster sessions. Posters receive a great deal of attention at WAIS Workshop and frequently launch new research directions.

2026 Science Sessions

For 2026, we have six thematic science sessions. If you do not feel like your research fits into one these sessions, never fear: the WAIS Workshop Organizing Committees takes these sessions as a suggestion and will reorganize presentationsn and sessions as needed. The sessions for 2026 WAIS Workshop are:

• Looking ahead: The next decade of WAIS science? We seek submissions that highlight our biggest scientific needs and knowledge gaps, and propose high-priority projects or focus areas for the next decade and the International Polar Year (IPY). Topics may include critically needed ground-, air-, and space-based infrastructure, high-value drilling project ideas, community frameworks for hosting and leveraging data archives, and new observational technologies. We particularly welcome abstracts on big ideas or those that will facilitate discussion of IPY activities.
• Snow, Flow, fracture, and friction: Process-oriented observation and modeling. Understanding future ice-sheet evolution requires improved knowledge of the physical processes driving ice-sheet motion and change. We welcome contributions on ice-sheet dynamics, shear margin and grounding line evolution, hydrology, fracture and calving, ice-ocean interactions, and surface mass balance. Studies may be observational, experimental, or theoretical, and should advance our process-level understanding of the ice sheet.
• Back to the Future: Records of past marine ice-sheet change and projections of future evolution. Understanding Antarctic Ice Sheet change requires records from before the modern observational period to contextualize present and projected change. We invite contributions from the paleoglaciological community that constrain decadal, centennial, and millennial ice-sheet processes based on observations, data, or modelling. We also invite contributions focused on continental to basin scale ice-sheet simulations and the tools that enable them to juxtapose the paleo and future states of marine ice-sheets. Topics include ISMIP7, coupled ice-sheet models, ensemble simulations, uncertainty quantification, and computing and modeling infrastructure.
• Artificial intelligence and computational frontiers in marine ice-sheet science. Artificial intelligence is transforming how we observe, model, and predict the behavior of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. We welcome contributions that pair AI or machine learning with data-driven approaches and physical understanding to make progress in ice sheet modeling, data fusion, and uncertainty quantification for past, present, and future states of WAIS and other marine-based ice sheets.
• Building the glaciologist of 2036: Preparing the next generation of ice-sheet scientists. International Polar Years and NASA Decadal Surveys provide unparalleled opportunity to reconsider training opportunities to ensure we have a resilient WAIS workforce. We welcome contributions that consider the state of our profession, the current opportunities that exist, and what we need to improve to train systems-thinking glaciologists for the coming decade.