Adriane here-

Earlier this year before the world went into lock down, I had the opportunity to participate in an early career researcher (ECR) workshop through the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP). The workshop was focused on how to write a scientific drilling proposal with colleagues and friends.

The workshop was held at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades New York, just north of New York City. At Lamont, scientists and staff manage U.S. scientific support services for IODP, the major collaborative program which, among several other things, allows scientists to live and work at sea for two months drilling and studying sediment cores. The workshop was specifically for early career researchers, which is loosely defined as a researcher who has gained their Ph.D. but has not achieved tenure (that critical phase in a professor’s career where they receive a permanent residence at their college or university).

This workshop, which first ran a few years back, was conceived between Time Scavengers’ own Dr. Andrew Fraass and his close colleague, Dr. Chris Lowery. They, along with their colleagues, built the workshop and it has run every 2-3 years since its conception. What is so neat about the workshop is that it is also run and organized by other ECRs, with the help of more senior scientists.

The first day of the workshop focused on introducing the attendees to aspects of IODP. These included presentations on the past and future of scientific ocean drilling and the IODP proposal writing process. We also did participant introductions, where we stood up and had 1 minute to talk about ourselves, our research, etc. using only images on one slide. We, the participants, were also broken out into groups later in the day by themes we identified ourselves as (for example, I indicated I was in the Biosphere group because I work with fossil and am interested in evolutionary questions). From these breakout groups, we then identified 5 places in the Pacific Ocean we would like to target for drilling. Later that night, the workshop organizers held a networking reception for us at a nearby building on campus. The networking event was incredibly cool (they fed us dinner, and it was really great food) and useful (I had the opportunity to meet and speak with other ECRs who have similar interests as myself).

The second day of the workshop, we arrived and discussed how to obtain data for a drilling proposal. Just to give some insight into what goes into a drilling proposal, this is a 15+ page document in which scientists write out their hypotheses, where they want to drill on the seafloor, preliminary data that says something to support the hypotheses outlined, and what we call site survey data. Site surveys are when scientists take smaller ships out with an apparatus pulled behind the ship. These apparatuses use sonar to map the features of the bottom of the seafloor, but also the properties of the sediment below the seafloor. The changing densities of the different sediments appear as ‘reflectors’, allowing an MRI-like preliminary investigation of the sediments in which the scientists want to drill into. An entire presentation was dedicated to obtaining older site survey data. We also heard presentations about the different drill ships and drilling platforms implemented by IODP. The second part of the day was again spent working in groups. This time, however, we split ourselves into different groups depending on what area of the Pacific Ocean we were interested in working on. I put myself with the group interested in drilling the southeast Pacific, off the southern coast of New Zealand. Here, we began to come up with hypotheses for our proposals and begin to write those down.

The third and fourth days of the workshop included limited presentations, with more time dedicated to letting the groups work on their proposals. One of the main outcomes of the workshop is to have participants walk away with an idea of how to write a drilling proposal, but also to have the basic groundwork in place for a proposal with a group of people who share similar interests. So ample time was given for the participants to refine their hypotheses, find some preliminary data about their drilling locations from online databases, and build a presentation to present to the entire workshop. On the afternoon of the fourth day, the teams presented their ideas to everyone, including more senior scientists who have submitted drilling proposals in the past and have worked on panels to evaluate others’ drilling proposals.

All in all, this was a great workshop that really allowed for folks to learn more about the IODP program, where and how to find important resources, and how to begin writing these major drilling proposals. These events are particularly important for scientists from marginalized backgrounds and first-generation scientists. For me (a first-generation scientist), making connections with others is sometimes very difficult, as I have terrible imposter syndrome (when you feel like you don’t belong in a community and that you will be found out as an imposter) and am hyper aware that I was raised quite differently than most of my peers. Being in such a setting, with other scientists, forced to work together, is terrifying but also good because I had the opportunity to talk to and work with people I would not normally work with. For example, I had wonderful discussions with microbiologists and professors whose work focuses more on tectonics, people from two research areas which I hardly interacted with previously.