Images created by Andrew Lehoullier
Program for the 2016 Meeting
REGISTRATION: On Monday, Registration for the short course and meeting will be available from 10:30 A.M. to 1:00 P.M on the first floor of the Concourse Hotel, just outside the Assembly Room. On Tuesday, registration will open at 7:30 A.M. on the 2nd-floor foyer, adjacent to the Madison Ballroom. Keep in mind that the meeting registration includes breakfast, breaks, and lunches on Tuesday and Wednesday, plus the Tuesday poster social. For those registering onsite, please plan to use a credit card for the online registration.
MONDAY BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING: The Midwest Chapter will hold a board of director’s meeting from 5:00 P.M. to 6:30 P.M. in the Assembly Room, Concourse Hotel (open to all members). MONDAY SOCIAL: Join the meeting attendees at the informal Meet-n-Greet at the Brocach Pub & Restaurant on Monday, March 14 from 7:30 P.M. to 9 P.M. (or later!). Meet in the Upstairs Lounge at the Brocach, 7 West Main Street, Madison (www. brocach.com). This is ‘walking distance’ from the meeting location, and across from the State Capitol Building. This event is not included in the registration,
PLATFORM PRESENTATION UPLOAD: All platform presenters will upload their presentations onsite. Presentations can be uploaded at the registration desk on Monday (11 A.M. to 1 P.M.) and both Tuesday and Wednesday mornings between 7:00 A.M. to 7:50 A.M. Please make every effort to bring your presentation to the registration desk during this time.
POSTER PRESENTATIONS: Poster boards will be available in the Wisconsin Ballroom of the Concourse Hotel beginning after lunch on Tuesday; details to be provided at the meeting. This informal session provides opportunities for technical and informal discussions with colleagues. Keep in mind that the student submissions may be viewed by the judges during this time, so get your poster up early. Your poster needs to be available for viewing for the entire two and a half‐hour social program and has to be taken down at the end of the social. Register for the Meeting
HOTEL RESERVATION: A block of rooms has been reserved at The Madison Concourse Hotel and Governor’s Club at 1 West Dayton Street, Madison, WI 55802. The hotel is located in downtown Madison. Rooms will be held until February 29, 2016 at 11:59 P.M central time. The conference room rate is $144/night per single and $154/night per double plus 14.5% tax. Be sure to Request the “Midwest SETAC” room block We have arranged for a limited number of govt rate rooms. For the federal government room ($105/night), ask for “FED Midwest SETAC” block (or ID code 521284) and for the State of Wisconsin rate ($82.00/night), contact our Board of Directors. After February 29, reservations can only be accepted on a space available basis. Call the Concourse Hotel directly at 1-800-356-8293 to make reservations. Click here for directions to the hotel. If you have any questions, contact our Board of Directors.
SHORT COURSE: Monday, March 14, 11:00 a.m.
A short course precedes the main meeting on the afternoon of Monday, March 14. This year the topic is “Communicating Science - Improv 4 Scientists” and is based on workshops offered at the Alan Alda Center for Science Communication at Stony Brook University. This training is a way for scientists and health professionals to learn to communicate more effectively with their peers and colleagues, the public, government officials, media, and others outside their discipline. Participants will learn how to utilize theatrical improvisation to communicate their research and messaging. Improvisers are experts in storytelling, spontaneity, and using observation skills to adjust to their audiences and team members accordingly. Among other skills, this workshop will teach attendees how to 1) effectively communicate your work to different audiences, 2) adjust your behavior in real time to respond to audience feedback, and 3) manipulate a vocal and physical presence to communicate more effectively. Everyone can learn to use these skills when giving lectures, presenting abstracts, describing research posters, and talking with mentors and peers. (Course is limited to 20 participants.) This short course will be led by Amy Zelenski and Clare Haden, both from the UW-Madison and trained at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science. The course runs from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. with meeting registration starting at 10:30 a.m. at the Assembly Meeting Room in The Madison Concourse Hotel.
PLENARY SPEAKERS:
Tuesday, March 15, 9:00 a.m.
Dominique Brossard, Ph.D., will present “Communicating Science: Insights from the Science of Science Communication”. Her talk will address the recent debates surrounding controversial scientific topics that have highlighted the fact that many questions raised by scientific breakthroughs do not have scientific answers, but instead ethical, political, or societal ones. She plans to discuss what we know about how these issues are likely to play out in media and in the political sphere, based on insights from science communication research. Dominique is an internationally known expert in public opinion dynamics related to controversial scientific issues. Dominique is professor and chair in the Department of Life Sciences Communication at UW-Madison. Her teaching responsibilities include courses in strategic communication theory and research, with a focus on science and risk communication. Her research focuses on the intersection between science, media, and policy with the Science, Media and the Public research group, which she co-directs. She is particularly interested in understanding the role of values in shaping public attitudes and using cross-cultural analysis to understand these processes. Dominique earned her M.S. in plant biotechnology from the Ecole Nationale d’Agronomie de Toulouse and her M.P.S and Ph.D. in communication from Cornell University
Tuesday, March 16, 4:15 p.m.
David Krabbenhoft, Ph.D., will present “Communicating Your Results after the Journal Paper: The Most Important Consumers of Your Hard Work Do Not Read Science Journals!” Dave received his Ph.D. from UW-Madison in 1988 and has been a research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey ever since. His general research interests are in biogeochemistry and hydrogeology of aquatic ecosystems. Dave began working on environmental mercury cycling, transformations, and fluxes in aquatic ecosystems with the Mercury in Temperate Lakes project in 1988; since then, the topic has consumed his professional life. Currently, Dave’s research team is active on projects that span environments from the open oceans to high altitude freshwater ecosystems. Since 1990, he has authored or coauthored over 150 papers on mercury in the environment but spends at least as much of his effort presenting to non-technical audiences – including frequent briefings at the US capital. In 2014, Dave received the USGS Shoemaker Award for lifetime achievement in science communication