With the overarching theme “The Changing Ocean Environment: From a Multidisciplinary Perspective,” the Third Xiamen Symposium on Marine Environmental Sciences (XMAS-III,http://mel.xmu.edu.cn/conference/3XMAS/) was held at Xiamen University's Science and Art Center from January 9th to 11th, 2017.
The symposium consisted of 4 general sessions, 9 special sessions and 2 workshops, covering physical oceanography, marine biogeochemistry, biological oceanography, and marine ecotoxicology along with workshops for emerging topics in marine environmental sciences.
Five respected scientists delivered keynote speeches: Dr. Peter G. Brewer from Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Dr. Richard A. Feely from NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Dr. Dennis McGillicuddy from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Dr. Mary Jane Perry from University of Maine, and Dr. Jonathan Zehr from University of California, Santa Cruz. They spoke about discoveries in the fields of biogeochemical process, ocean acidification, physical-biological interaction, marine remote sensing, and marine microbial biogeochemistry.
The conference attracted more than 620 scientists and graduates from 150 institutions covering 21 countries and regions, including the USA, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. A total of 211 oral talks and 308 posters were presented during the conference.
In addition to oral and poster sessions, the conference organized several activities:
Open Discussion Session on Publication Practice in JGR-Oceans
At noon on Jan 9, Dr. Peter Brewer held an open discussion for young researchers. He shared his experience as Editor-in chief and talked about how to write a paper and get it published in a scientific journal.
Student Activities
The evening of Jan 9, several invited scientists shared their lives and career experiences with students, such as their first papers, first job interviews, the best or the most difficult moments in their careers, and their lives as scientists. The Student Poster Review Committee evaluated more than 160 posters presented by students and five were selected as winners of the poster competition. The scholarship is jointly sponsored by MEL (XMU) and SWIMS (HKU)
Women in Science Salon
While the ratio of female to male students in ocean and environmental sciences fields have steadily increased over the years, the number of female scientists within the higher tiers of science remains disappointingly low.In the late afternoon of Jan 10, several leading women in the field held an open discussion about the opportunities and challenges specific to women in science. Hosted by Dr. Anne McElroy from Stony Brook University, Dr. Anja Engel from Geomar Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Dr. Ann Pearson from Harvard University, Dr. Mingfang Ting from Columbia University, Dr. Mary Jane Perry from University of Maine, and Dr. Robin Robertson from University of New South Wales Canberra. Dr. Huijie Xue from University of Maine also joined the discussion through Skype.
To foster knowledge and ideas exchange within the marine environmental science community and, in particular, to promote interdisciplinary studies, the State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science (MEL, http://mel.xmu.edu.cn/en) of Xiamen University initiated the XMAS series conference, with the support from Department of Earth Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China. The fourth iteration, XMAS 2019, will be held in Xiamen 2019.