CLEX has introduced a new engagement prize for students and early career researchers on fixed contracts with the winner announced at the next annual workshop. The prize is for all forms of engagement but engagement outside the university sector and beyond our usual stakeholders will be considered particularly highly.
With the drama and instability of 2020, many of our ECRs have faced unprecedented challenges including loneliness, homesickness and the mounting uncertainties for their future careers. That latter concern may be why the majority of ECRs wanted this year's virtual ECR workshop to focus on the Future in academia and planning your research career.
The RV Investigator returned to Hobart after a 32-day voyage to map a meander of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) Polar Front. Onboard were 11 CLEX students and postdocs; three international students; a film maker and visual artist; and collaborators from CSIRO, Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The role of the ECR committee is to facilitate, encourage, and contribute to the development of all CLEX researchers undertaking postgraduate study or who are five years post-PhD.
Students and ECRs have an opportunity to take part in a voyage to a standing meander of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) south of Tasmania. They will undertake a 3-dimensional survey of the velocity and density structure of the meander, deploy a fleet of EM-APEX profiling floats and conduct time series measurements.