Career Central, located within the Exhibit Hall, delivers hands-on sessions on job search strategies, career navigation, and exploration opportunities. Since its inception in 2018, Career Central has continually evolved, and this year’s vision is our most ambitious yet. We’ve expanded the space to host additional employer recruitment activities and curated a daily series of networking events to ignite connections among professionals from diverse sectors. Each day is centered around a broad thematic focus, ensuring valuable opportunities for all participants.
- The Basic Program
- Career navigation & exploration, resume and CV guidance
- Meeting Our Editors in Chief
- Networking & office hours
- Data Help
- Drop-in assistance from experts
The Basic Program
Our program area covers a wide range of topics in career navigation across different sectors, offering space for both formal and informal networking. We also include daily resume/CV reviews and mock job interviews to provide practical, personalized support. Join our dynamic panels featuring experts from various sectors and ecological career paths.
View the full schedule! Subject to change as participation advances.
Monday: Career Skills
- 10:30 AM
- Elevator Pitches & Scientific Meetings
- 12:00 PM
- The Ecology Entrepreneur: Launching Your Scientific Practice
- Communicating Science: Perspectives from Editors & Communicators
- (until 3:00 PM) Resume Reviews (pre-sign up here)
- 1:30 PM
- Managing Career Transitions
- Find Funding
- 2:45 PM
- Exploring Ecology Careers Integrating Psychology and Mental Health
- Career Growth Through Internships & Fellowships
- 3:00 PM
- (until 5:00 PM) Mock Job Interviews (pre-sign up here)
- 4:00 PM
- Professional Resumes 101
- Job Interviews Outside of Academia
- 5:00 PM
- Informal Networking with Public and Private Sector Ecologists
Tuesday: Academic Fair
- 10:30 AM
- Roundtable with the ESA Early Career Ecologists Section & Journal Editors in Chief
- 12:00 PM
- Thriving in Grad School (and Beyond)
- Communicating Science: Perspectives from Editors & Communicators
- (until 3:00 PM) Resume Reviews (pre-sign up here)
Meet Our Editors in Chief
Our journals’ EICs are available for a few different meet-and-greet opportunities during the week. If you have questions or even just want to meet an eminent figure in scientific publishing, make sure to connect during one of these times.
The Early Career Ecologists Section will be holding a networking roundtable with EICs on Tuesday morning, and EIC Speed Networking will be on Tuesday afternoon in two blocks between 3:00 and 5:00 PM. We will post the signup sheet at least one week prior; though some last-minute spaces may be available, it is strongly encouraged to sign up as early as possible.
Additionally, EICs will be available for drop-in visits throughout the week, at the membership booth in the exhibit hall. We will post the schedule in this space once available, and have a copy available at the booth upon arrival in Long Beach.
Data Help
In addition to the data skills training all over the program, we are organizing open office hours during which our exhibitors, sponsors and members will be available to share their expertise with you! You can find this schedule at the membership booth in Long Beach as well.
- Center for Wildlife Studies (Booth 332)
- Jack Hopkins: Coding in R, wildlife ecology
- Wednesday, 2:00-5:00 PM
- Jack Hopkins: Coding in R, wildlife ecology
- GBIF (Booth 620)
- Kate Ingenloff: Applying Darwin Core to biodiversity data, FAIR and open data; publishing to GBIF; accessing & using GBIF data
- Monday, 2:00-3:00 PM
- Tuesday, 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
- Wednesday, 2:00-3:00, 4:00-5:00 PM
- Kate Ingenloff: Applying Darwin Core to biodiversity data, FAIR and open data; publishing to GBIF; accessing & using GBIF data
- iDigBio/Symbiota Support Hub (Booth 514)
- Katie Pearson: Biodiversity data, specimen data, Darwin Core, GBIF data, phenology
- Monday, 12:00-5:00 PM
- Tuesday, 12:00-5:00 PM
- Wednesday, 12:00-5:00 PM
- Katie Pearson: Biodiversity data, specimen data, Darwin Core, GBIF data, phenology
- LTER Network
- Angel Chen: Coding in R, data wrangling, version control, best practices for scripted reproducible workflows
- Monday, 12:00-1:00, 3:00-4:00 PM
- Wednesday, 3:00-4:00 PM
- Nick Lyon: Version control (i.e., Git/GitHub), R, some Python/SQL/Quarto
- Monday, 1:00-2:00 PM
- Wednesday, 2:00-5:00 PM
- Angel Chen: Coding in R, data wrangling, version control, best practices for scripted reproducible workflows