This post was written by Jessica Sheu, a recent graduate from the computer science Masters program at San Jose State University.  Jessica has been developing tools to apply machine learning techniques to automatically classify and ID images of sinking particles.

This June, I attended my first Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry (OCB) workshop! I presented a 2-minute lightning talk to advertise my poster on the research Dr. Durkin and I have been working on since Summer 2018: image classification of marine particles. I’m glad I did, because after hearing my talk, people who felt that my research could be specifically useful to them, sought out my poster. If you will be presenting a poster at a future OCB workshop, I highly recommend presenting a lightning talk too.

My first OCB experience was amazingly positive. Being from a Computer Science background with not a lot of technical oceanography knowledge, I was initially nervous. However, everyone I met was incredibly welcoming, and all the talks were interesting. I most enjoyed the plenary session on calcification and the carbon cycle organized by Andrea Fassbender and Jessica Cross, just because it made the most sense to me with my current limited ocean knowledge. I also loved how there was a panel after each plenary session that was very inviting for discussion. It was interesting to observe how everyone was so honest with their opinions of their research and future directions, while also being extremely open to hearing others’.

The entire workshop was not only extremely well-organized, but also thoughtfully so; I could tell that every event was placed and planned with intention. The organizers made sure to provide adequately long breaks between sessions so that attendees could stretch their legs, socialize, and refill on coffee. Delicious breakfast and lunch (and, on some days, hors d’oeuvres or dinner) were catered every day, and spacious transportation to and from the workshop was provided. I particularly appreciated how the agenda of each day was different. If there was a long day of talks on one day, the next day would intentionally provide more free time. In addition, I appreciated how accommodating OCB was towards students or early-career attendees. They organized special sessions for us, including a casual mixer and panel. Because of the mixer, I was able to meet a lot of people in a similar stage as me, as well as have some familiarity with faces for the rest of the week.

I’m very thankful for the OCB community and my experience at this workshop, and I’m glad that this was the first ocean conference I have attended. I felt so welcomed by everyone I met, and it was so interesting learning about other research during the talks and poster sessions. I would recommend this workshop to anyone, and I hope to attend more OCB workshops in the future!