SVP 2018: a review of the most important parts

The title is all the context you get, because explanations are for fools.

Special thanks to Keilah, Spencer, and Eric for their patience and excellent modelling skills. A grateful apology to the leprechaun of a museum volunteer who had to lead us around after Meaghan had already consumed half a beer and was thus, basically wasted. And a tip of the hat to the lady who followed us around for much of this - we may not know you, but we appreciated the audience participation. That stalactite DID look like a poop.

Poster Session Drinking Game

Poster sessions are the first part of the day when it's socially acceptable to drink at a conference (don't try it earlier, people think you're weird, don't ask how we know). Poster sessions are also one of the strangest people-watching experiences outside of Vegas (and yes, that year SVP was in Vegas at the same time as the porn convention was one of the greatest people-watching collisions of all time).

With SVP scale bars, naturally

The interactions you have at a poster session will stay with you for the rest of your life (good or bad), so we've decided to formalize your drinking and people-watching experience with a drinking game.

Things We Hope to See at SVP

SVP abstract season is upon us. It got extended, again - they seem to just now assign a "please submit by" deadline and a "WHAT WHY IS NOBODY SUBMITTING ANYTHING" deadline move always occurs later. It's cute, we like it, whatever.

PLEASE COME PLEASE SUBMIT UR ABSTRACTS

SVP this year will be in Dallas, which means that Meaghan will probably gorge herself on barbecue and be too ill and full of beef to enjoy much of the conference. Amy's actually going to be there this year, which will be a massive improvement over last time, where Meaghan was alone and bereft and there weren't nearly enough people spending their full 15 minute talks explaining how cute omomyids were. So this year is already automatically going to be better, but we do have a few tips for SVP planners this year, in time enough we hope they'll implement them.

Because we are just soooo excited for SVP 2015

It's Conference Season!

GSA, SVP and AGU are all coming up in rapid-fire succession: it's the geology conference season! Conferences are a great place to meet your potential future collaborators (and dissenters), show off your work, and talk awesome science shop. Conferences are also a place to look for graduate programs, to shop around for jobs, and to further your careers. That makes them somewhat important... and therefore somewhat stressful. For women conferences have the complicating factors of the possibility (and for some conferences, probability) of sexual harassment, or of being disregarded for wearing the wrong clothing, or being ignored entirely by the powerful men around you. Losing your voice and confidence at a conference isn't a phenomenon known only to women, but there are certainly a lot more women-specific factors that build that possibility up.

So to help facilitate your lady scientist conference experience here is a short recap of some some awesome articles about how to kick ass and take business cards at these awesome fall conferences.

Step One: Awesome Business card

First off, why not read some of the words of extreme wisdom provided by Mary Anning's Revenge? We wrote a nice list of conference anti-harassment policies - why don't you check and see if your conference made the list and if not... get some verbal ammo to make that shit change in upcoming years. There's also our great article on how to Infiltrate the Old Boy's Club: how to get noticed and STAY noticed at this year's conference. Of course, that's always a bit of a concern for the ladies cuz we don't want attention for the wrong things. Concerned about what to wear? Commiserate with Meaghan's conference attire poetry.

But there are more resources than our mere blog can provide (well, yet anyway).Are you concerned about finding polite ways to respond to mansplaining? Sometimes the middle finger just doesn't work, but there are other phrases to memorize and employ when you are interrupted, derailed, repeated, or otherwise talked over by a male colleague. Or maybe you're having a little bit of imposter syndrome about presenting your research? Let Amy Cuddy help you posture your body to feel more confident (which sounds like a Dr. Oz recommendation but this is actually based in SCIENCE.) And if raising your arms over your head doesn't make you feel confident enough, try some other little steps to combat imposter syndrome, including making lists of your greatness. Hell just being aware of the problem can help you solve it, so learn a little more about the confidence gap - and then defy it when presenting.

We used this GIF quite recently but even though Meaghan absolutely hates this show, it's a REALLY GOOD GIF so we'll use it one more time, cuz it's an important thing to remember:

Now go out there and kick conference ass.

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What Can I Wear to This Conference?

What should I wear to this conference

That will help me get a good job?

I want to look professional, I want to look respectable,

But I own more field pants than real pants

And most of my closet's quick-dry
Nothing in my closet says "take me into the field!"

Without also saying "I am a slob!"

Conferences are supposed to be professional

But that's only part of this job.

Problem Number Two: I'm a girl.

I'm short and I'm blonde: people don't expect much from me (they should)

Should I wear heels, or dye my hair?

Maybe they'd listen better if I was a brunette

Or wore a sports bra. 

Tits don't get tenure-track.

GSA 2013: The Good, The Bad, and The Coyote Ugly

GSA was full of its fair share of tummy aches, talks where squinting was the only option, and hilarious, fabulous geology. First off, I finally physically met my mentor, Kate Zeigler!

Amy, Kate, and their Paleozoic pal eurypterid!

Our meeting in person was almost more than the geology gods could handle, but we fortunately weren't struck down and made into fulgurites (heh) as we dined on burgers and milkshakes. I could finally ask some questions that are hard to phrase over email ("Erm soo paleomagnitude... that's like, yeah, basalt points north? Poles switch and it blows my mind?") I also got a chance to grill her on some hard hitting paleo-questions which will be featured in an upcoming Vengeance Team interview (Meaghan guest stars and wow, what a guest she makes...).

I hadn't realized how much I had in common with Kate, who has been my mentor through the Huffington Post Girls in STEM program from afar for a few months. We have plans to rock climb in New Mexico whenever my skin becomes so pale that the SW sun is the only cure to my vitD deficiency.

SVP Summary Part 1: Dinosaurs are Surprisingly Relevant

We know, we know, there was no blog post last week. We're sorry. We were doing a science. We'll make up for it by posting too much this week instead!

Amy is still trying to pull together her thoughts from GSA (the beer there was free), but Meaghan has decided that instead of creating a cohesive summary she's going to vomit some grey matter on the page and let all y'all just deal with it. Today we're going to talk about Meaghan's favorite non-poster presentation which was, surprisingly, a dinosaur talk!

Infiltrating the Old Boy's Club

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, the Old Boy's Club (OBC) is comprised of the old (and typically white) men who dominate the top tiers of many industries. This phenomenon is pretty apparent in most fields, but especially so in academia where female presence at high levels caps out at 35% at most. 

Now, we could shout about that endlessly in bitter, bitchy terms, but we’ve taken a dose of the considerate pills today (V.T. South’s roomie made pumpkin cake, V.T. North has a job again, all is awesome in the world) and decided to give the benefit of the doubt to members of the OBC: maybe they just don’t know about ladies’ struggles! Also, they probably don’t know about all the awesome ladies they could be hiring, because OBC members don’t network with ladies, they network with dudes.