Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone: Early Career Researcher Perspectives on Chairing a Session at an International Conference

The fear of making mistakes and/or expressing ideas incorrectly is a common reason for early career researchers (ECRs) to avoid engaging in activities that they feel could expose them. This feeling often intensifies at international conferences, where renowned scientists in our field are present and the possibility of being judged becomes very real. Some of us can vividly recall our first international conference and the anxiety that crept up when entering the auditorium where we would present our work. That feeling can be amplified when ECRs decide to go a step further and organize their own conference session. We are two ECRs from South America interested in the cycle of methane in freshwater ecosystems. Paula is a postdoctoral fellow in Canada working on methanotrophy in lakes, and Sofia is finishing up her Ph.D. in Argentina, looking at methane dynamics in Pampean lakes. In 2022, during the conference of the International Society of Limnology, the desire to organize our own session at an international conference in the future sparked in us. At that moment, doubts abounded: What should the session focus on? Should we target a broad audience or be very specific? Who would be interested in presenting during our session? Are more experienced researchers going to propose sessions that might overshadow ours? Would our proposed session be accepted? How can we effectively and confidently communicate with our audience? These and other concerns crossed our minds, but we persevered and submitted a session proposal for the ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting to be held in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, in June 2023. Our session focused on the recent advances in understanding the biological and physical controls on the cycle of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, in freshwater and marine ecosystems. Despite significant progress in recent decades, much uncertainty remains regarding mechanistic explanations, quantitative estimations, upscaling, and predictions of each component of the intricate methane cycle. We invited contributions related to any step (production, oxidation, accumulation, emission, food web incorporation) and at every scale (from molecular to global) in both freshwater and marine systems. Session presentations included experimental and field evidence of oxic methane production, methane oxidation by aerobic bacteria under oxygen-limited conditions, the importance of neglected methane emission pathways such as plant mediated and ebullition, the effect of submerged macrophytes on methane dynamics, sediment flushing and degassing in hydropower reservoirs, and coupled physical and biogeochemical modeling (Fig. 1). Some of the ECRs in the audience approached us after the session curious about the process we went through to organize it, and some even suggested that we publish a note about our experience. Below we share our journey and the valuable lessons we learnt, particularly that confronting our fears and preparing well can lead to unexpected and positive outcomes in our professional endeavors. To act as co-chairs we invited two senior researchers, Prof. Sarian Kosten (Radboud University, Netherlands) and Prof. Hans-Peter Grossart (Leibniz Institute for Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries and Potsdam University, Germany), who kindly accepted our invitation to join us in organizing the session (Fig. 2). Although not mandatory, we advise that ECRs interested in chairing a session invite more experienced researchers to help in this undertaking. In our case, Sarian and Hans-Peter were excellent mentors: they gave us the support and encouragement that we needed to do the job confidently. They provided feedback on the session scope and description, suggested and reviewed potential invited speakers, let us lead the session during the conference, and helped with questions to the speakers. Having senior scientists co-chairing a session is also an opportunity for ECRs to develop new meaningful professional connections, while making the session more attractive to potential presenters who are more likely to know the work of the senior scientists than that of the ECRs. Our commitment to this activity, or perhaps the fear of failing it, was so great that we seized the opportunity provided by the conference to deliver an introductory talk at the start of the session. We created a presentation that synthesized the content of all accepted abstracts while also connecting them to the core concepts of the topic (Fig. 1). However, as we attended earlier sessions at the conference and realized that introductory talks were not a common practice, we questioned whether we had overprepared. We even considered scrapping the introductory talk the day before the session! But we considered the time and effort we invested in preparing it and decided to proceed. To our relief, the introductory talk was very well received by the audience. We got multiple pieces of positive feedback, and some attendees even expressed their wish for every session to include an overview talk about the topic and the following presentations. Session chairs are also expected to facilitate the discussions between the audience and speakers. In this regard, a valuable preparation tip for chairs is to familiarize themselves with the session abstracts and try to think in advance of at least one question for each presentation. This helps to get the discussion going and avoid that uncomfortable situation when no one in the audience has a question for a speaker. It is also helpful to have a list with the names of the speakers and their presentation titles in hand, as session chairs must call speakers to the stage (or to the front of the room) and conferences do not always provide such a list. We featured two invited speakers during the session, both also ECRs. The choice to invite early career speakers was a deliberate and purposeful one. While selecting speakers at the outset of their careers may introduce an element of uncertainty regarding their readiness and expertise, it also offers a unique opportunity for young researchers to showcase their work and gain recognition in the field. ECRs are typically enthusiastic, a desirable quality in a speaker that is always appreciated by the audience. In addition, when given opportunities, ECRs generally overprepare so their presentations are generally well structured, esthetic, rehearsed, and of very good quality. In the case of our session, both invited ECR speakers delivered outstanding presentations, adding valuable insights to the topics discussed. We strongly advocate for a greater inclusion of ECRs as conference speakers, particularly in invited roles. This approach has the potential to enhance the quality of conference sessions and foster a more dynamic and inclusive research community. Our journey from initial trepidation to a successful session at the ASLO 2023 Aquatic Sciences Meeting underscores the value of preparation and confronting our fears. The unexpected positive outcomes, such as the well-received introductory talk and the encouragement we received from our peers, reaffirm the importance of acting outside of our comfort zone. In addition, our deliberate inclusion of ECRs as invited speakers during the session highlights the benefits of providing opportunities for young scholars. We strongly encourage ECRs to step up and organize sessions at their upcoming conference and to strive to provide opportunities for other ECRs when in a position where they can do so. Our session on the cycle of methane in freshwater and marine ecosystems exemplified the diverse and critical research in this field, and we are excited to see how it continues to evolve. We would like to thank our session co-chairs, Sarian Kosten and Hans-Peter Grossart, all speakers, and audience for joining our session and for their commitment to push the frontiers of the aquatic sciences. Paula is thankful to the AMTD Global Talent Postdoctoral Fellowship for funding to attend the conference. Sofia is thankful to the ASLO for providing a travel grant to help cover the expenses to attend the conference. The authors are grateful to Rita Franco-Santos for providing valuable feedback on this article.

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