2019 WAIS Workshop

Twenty-Sixth Annual WAIS Workshop
October 16-18, 2019
Camp Cedar Glen
Julian, California, U.S.A.

Click here for the conference booklet, which includes agenda, abstracts, and participant list!

Click here to see the YouTube archive of sessions from the 2019 workshop. 

The 2019 WAIS Workshop will be held outside of sunny San Diego, California, at the newly upgraded and remodeled Camp Cedar Glen in Julian, CA. This NSF- and NASA-sponsored meeting hosts transdisciplinary and societally critical science focused on marine ice-sheet and adjacent earth systems, with particular emphasis on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Similar to past years, registration and abstraction submission will open in early July and the abstract deadline will be in August. The WAIS Workshop will immediately follow the 2019 Interdisciplinary Antarctic Earth Sciences meeting from October 13-15, also at Camp Cedar Glen. The 2019 meeting is hosted locally by Helen Fricker and the WAIS Organizing Committee (Knut Christianson, Indrani Das, Joseph MacGregor, Brooke Medley, Matthew Siegfried, Lauren Simkins). 

The meeting begins with an Icebreaker pizza dinner on Tuesday evening, October 15. Sessions are organized by topic, with keynote speakers for some sessions, followed by contributed talks and concluding with a panel discussion. Poster sessions will be held separately. We anticipate about 40-50 talks. The formal meeting agenda will end at lunch on Friday, October 18, followed by a workshop to bring together community college educators and the WAIS research community. Also new for this year, we will have an opt-in mentoring program for any early-career WAIS Workshop attendees and a workshop-wide discussion about issues surrounding fieldwork conduct.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are embraced at the WAIS Workshop, and we are committed to creating and maintaining a workshop environment that is safe, inclusive, harassment-free, and welcoming to all genders, races, identities, self-expressions, ethnicities and cultures. Please see the WAIS Workshop policy on harassment for more information.

Deadlines

The deadline for Abstract Submission is August 7. Abstract submission is separate from the registration process. 
Early-career travel support request deadline is also August 7. We have limited funds to support air or ground travel to the meeting as well as registration fees (including lodging). 
Registration deadline is September 10, but our workshop has reached capacity before this deadline in the past, so register early! 
 

Registration

The registration fee includes Tuesday dinner, breakfasts, lunches and dinners on Wednesday and Thursday, and breakfast and lunch on Friday. Please indicate any dietary restrictions you may have on the registration form and the caterer will do their best to accommodate. 

Lodging at Camp Cedar Glen is in shared quarters on site. Staying at the camp allows interaction and collaboration among the meeting participants in an informal and beautiful setting. For the true WAIS Workshop experience, we recommend staying on-site, which is paid for through your registration fee. We do offer a limited number of hotel rooms, either singles or doubles, for those who prefer a hotel stay. We have small room blocks at Julian Gold Rush Hotel ($105-$175 per night; 1-800-734-5854) and the Apple Tree Inn ($89+ per night; 1-760-765-0222). For those staying off site, you will have to make reservations on your own by calling the numbers provided. Our block for Julian Gold Rush Hotel will be released on August 5, while those at Apple Tree Inn will be released on September 15, so make your reservations early!

Please do not hesitate to contact us with any lodging concerns you may have. 

Registration fees: 

The registration fee for the WAIS Workshop includes meals for the 2.5 day meeting and an option for three nights lodging: 
$325 for regular registration, including lodging at Camp Cedar Glen 
$225 for undergraduate and graduate students and early-career researchers (≤5 years from PhD), including lodging at Camp Cedar Glen
$150 for all attendees staying off site.

Refund policy:

Refunds, less a $35 service fee, will be offered through Friday, August 30, 2019. After that date, no refunds are allowed.

Ride sharing board -- We have set up an electronic ride-sharing board for those wishing to carpool to or from the airport. 

Back to Top

Agenda

Click here for the detailed agenda.

Plan to arrive Tuesday, October 15 for dinner and socializing; dinner is included in the registration fee and we ask for a small donation to cover drinks. The WAIS Workshop is 2½ days, concluding with lunch on Friday, October 18. We will have around 40-50 talks that cover all aspects of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet system, including research from glaciologists, oceanographers, atmospheric scientists, biologists, computer scientists, and engineers at all career stages. We also enourage abstracts that discuss relevant aspects of communicating WAIS science beyond the research community as well as ideas to improve the diversity, inclusion, and equity of our field. Following each set of oral presentations, a panel of the session's speakers and a moderator will lead an open discussion about the general theme, and examine what the significance of new insights presented in the talks is for the West Antarctic system. For 2019, sessions topics will include: 

• Will the snowflakes save us? Near-surface science in West Antarctica using shallow geophysics, ice cores, firn studies, atmospheric reanalysis, meteorological observations, and modeling
• Processes Beneath: Deep geophysics, direct-access experiments, microbiology, sediment coring, and modeling for quantifying critical processes from the basal interface to the core
• The Great Glacier Conveyer - A John Nye & Wally Broecker Appreciation Session: Connecting paleo understanding with modern processes
• From The Sea: Polar oceanography, tropical teleconnections, marine life, and ice front dynamics and their impact on a changing WAIS
• The Leading Edge: New boundary conditions, new modeling techniques, Operation IceBridge, ICESat-2, GRACE, GRACE-FO, NISAR, and data science applications for West Antarctic science
• Dynamics across the grounding line: Past, present, and future understanding of the ice stream-grounding zone-ice shelf transition seen from the ground, air, satellites, and models
• Science Communication: Taking WAIS science beyond our room
• Community Health: Avoiding, acknowledging, and approaching issues with field harassment

In addition to talks, WAIS Workshop will have space for 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 have historically received a great deal of attention at WAIS Workshops.

Basic Agenda:

Tuesday: Afternoon arrival, 4:30pm Steering Committee Meeting, 6:00pm opening icebreaker with dinner and drinks (please bring cash for drinks; both alcoholic and non-alcoholic options will be available)
Wednesday: Meeting begins with breakfast followed by two morning sessions of presentations, then lunch, one session of presentations, followed by the first poster session, concluding with dinner off-site at Julian Beer Company. 
Thursday:  Similar schedule to Wednesday, with two morning sessions, lunch, one afternoon session, the second poster session, and dinner on-site.
Friday: Friday morning will begin with breakfast, two morning sessions, then lunch. After lunch we will engage with the community college educators who were invited to attend the workshop in order to develop ideas for incorporating WAIS science into local community college curriculum.

Guidelines for Abstract Submission and Presentations

Abstract format and submission:

• Abstracts can be submitted at: https://dms.csmspace.com/. You will have to create an account with the Document Management System. This will allow you to edit your abstract later if you need to.
  
• Abstract submission (and edits) will close August 7. 

Talk guidelines:

• Talks will be 5, 10, or 15 minutes long, including time for questions and switching presenters. You can select your preference on the registration page, though the Organizing Committee will make the final allocation during the agenda creaion process. We have a full meeting so please be mindful of your time and courteous to the next presenter. A discussion period concludes each session where further questions can be addressed.
• All presentation files will be loaded on one central laptop to expedite the transition between presenters. We request you provide us with your presentation the day prior to your assigned time. Dinner time is a good time for this.
• Powerpoint or PDF files are preferred. Keynote is available.
• After the conference, presentations will be posted with the agenda on the WAIS Workshop site. If you prefer we don't publish your presentation, e-mail the Organizing Committee at: wais@mines.edu.
• For 2019, all talks will be livestreamed for those that cannot attend the conference. If you have concerns about livestreaming your talk, please contact the WAIS Workshop Organizing Committee. These livestreams will be recorded and archived on our website.

Poster guidelines:

• Preceding each poster session will be a brief opportunity for each day's poster presenters to give a one-minute pitch about their research.
• For space efficiency, posters cannot exceed 4 feet in height or width. 

Back to Top

Meals

Registration fee includes Tuesday dinner, breakfasts, lunches, and dinners on Wednesday and Thursday, and breakfast and lunch on Friday. Snacks and coffee are also included. Please indicate any dietary restrictions you may have on the registration form and the caterer will do their best to accommodate. 

Back to Top

Air Travel and Ground Transportation

We recommend you fly into San Diego International Airport, which is located about 1.5 hours by car from the venue. Directions are located on the Camp Cedar Glen website. 

We will offer a Ride-sharing Board for carpooling between the airport and the venue and/or hotel. Registered attendees will be sent the link to the ride sharing board in early September.

Back to Top

WAIS Workshop Policy on Harassment

The WAIS Workshop is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for participants regardless of gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, race, religion, or other protected status. The WAIS Workshop is a working conference intended for professional networking and collaboration for West Antarctic (and related) researchers. While attending the WAIS Workshop science program or related social events, any participants, including speakers, attendees, volunteers, and anyone else, should not engage in harassment or bullying in any form. All event participants are expected to behave according to professional standards and in accordance with their employer’s policies on appropriate workplace behavior. For issues or concerns during the conference, please contact any of the WAIS Workshop organizers or the local host, all of whom will be wearing WAIS pins. Additional contact information for our hosts and detalis about the reporting process will be available at WAIS Workshop check-in and posted online. This policy applies to all community situations online and offline, including the conference itself, mailing lists, social media, social events associated with the conference, and one-to-one interactions. Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately. Attendees violating these rules may be asked to leave the event at the sole discretion of the conference organizers without any refund.

We hope that our policy will reflect the values of the WAIS community. To that end, refining and updating this harassment policy to make it represent our community as a whole will be part of our discussion during the 2019 WAIS Workshop. 

Back to Top

Early-Career Travel Support

Back to Top

Subscribe to our mailing list for meeting notifications.

Questions? Please contact us at wais@mines.edu