PI Meeting

Annual Environmental Systems Science PI Meeting

BER has been carefully monitoring the rapidly evolving situation regarding the novel coronavirus pandemic. Many local and state governments have placed new mandates to help reduce the spread of the virus. In light of those changes and to ensure the safety of our PIs, we postponed this year’s meeting until 2021. We are actively working with the host hotel to reschedule the specific dates, but anticipate the meeting to be in the May 18-19, 2021, timeframe.

On May 19-20, 2020, we hosted a Virtual All-Hands Meeting, which focused on programmatic updates from TES and SBR as well as from other joint efforts (e.g., ESS-DIVE, etc.). The second day of the meeting included plenary science and program talks (e.g., budget talk, cyberinfrastructure update, etc.).

Additionally, to ensure continuity of communications between DOE program managers and the ESS community, we will host and plan a number of alternative events over the next nine months, including:

  • Community Town Halls: TES and SBR will host town halls and/or informal get togethers at this year’s larger scientific meetings such the Goldschmidt 2020 Meeting, Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, and the American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting. More details will be transmitted just before the respective meeting.
  • Exploring Additional Virtual Sessions: We realize that in addition to program updates, the PI meeting is also an opportunity for information exchange and discussion between projects and investigators. While we can’t wholly replace this function, we are exploring whether and how some PI meeting planned sessions might translate to a virtual format. Such sessions would be limited in number and may be scheduled throughout the year. We will share more information as we explore this option.

Previous PI Meetings