AERS thoughts on ERF 2005

AERS Helps Make ERF a success in Norfolk, Virginia
From Chris Swarth , AERS President

As we would expect, there was a large contingent of AERS members at the Norfolk meeting and many AERS members were on the conference organizing committee. We give a hearty knuckle salute to former AERS presidents Linda Blum and Bob Christian for their leadership role with the Norfolk conference. They worked for two years on this conference with a team of about 30 others. Linda was chair of the entire conference and Bob Christian co-chaired the scientific program. What an undertaking and we thank them for their commitment and hard work! Other AERSians who helped included the following people:

• Vic Kennedy and Carl Friedrichs were in charge of the poster sessions.

• Dan Dauer and Janet Nestlerode , with the help of Heidi Mahon and Beth Hinchey, organized dozens of student volunteers.

• Kevin Sellner organized the special two-day symposium on the Chesapeake Bay .

• Bob Orth helped raise funds to support the conference.

• Judith Stribling and Chris Swarth coordinated student judging and were ably assisted by Pat and Frank Reilly.
  

Two AERS students won awards for best student papers. Thomas Mozdzer of University of Virginia won 2nd place in the Poster category and Jessie Campbell of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science won an honorable mention for her oral presentation. Tom studies the dynamics of nitrogen cycling in tidal marshes, and Jessie works on the reproductive ecology of the SAV Vallisneria americana (wild celery). Congratulations to you both!

Many AERS student members volunteered their time to help with conference registration, audio-visual operation, and conference logistics. Thanks for your hard work!

We managed to attract about 35 people to the AERS business meeting, held on the 3rd night of the conference. The good turnout might have been due to rumors (true ones) that we'd planned to host a reception along with members of PERS after the business. Thanks to Ted DeWitt for initiating the East meets West party! The main topic of discussion was the location for our spring meeting. Dave Osgood and president-elect Dave Yozzo are firming up plans to hold the meeting in March at the Academy of Natural Sciences. We should have details worked out by the end of November. Treasurer Leila Hamdan announced that she will step down from her post in the spring. We'll be looking for someone to take over this important job in March. We say farewell to program co-chairs Jessie Campbell and Jennifer Stanhope and wish them well so they can devote more time and effort to dissertations and babies. We welcome graduate student David Gillett, also from VIMS, who joins the board as conference program chair.

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