JSMF and SFI postdoctoral fellows convened in Santa Fe for their second joint conference in July, 2017

The Santa Fe Institute and James S. McDonnell Foundation (JSMF) are reconvening their postdoctoral fellows for the third bi-annual Postdocs in Complexity Conference on March 27-30 in Santa Fe. The conference is generously funded by JSMF.

During the four-day postdoc conference, early career complexity scientists share ideas and collaborate on projects, and learn from researchers from within the SFI and JSMF communities and the corporate world.

This year’s talks will revisit several themes from previous conferences and introduce new topics, like SFI External Professor Michael Hochberg’s talk on academic publishing.

“Although early-career scientists may already have authorship experience, it can be highly challenging to navigate the world of scientific publishing,” says Hochberg, who is also the founding editor of Ecology Letters. His talk will explore what scientific journals are looking for and how they function, strategies for getting work published, the use of social media, and what to expect in the future of publishing.

The postdocs will also meet for four research jam sessions, working in small groups to tackle research questions. But unlike previous meetings where groups rotated through different topics, this year’s groups will each focus on a single topic.

“There was a desire to have more goal-oriented research exercises,” says Hilary Skolnik, SFI’s Postdoctoral Fellows Program Manager. “The goal for this year’s research jam sessions will be to work toward producing something substantial, like papers for publication or proposals for funding.” 

Read more about the Postdocs in Complexity Conference III.