Learning from the Lockdown: The Silver Linings of a Virtual Conference

BACKGROUND Due to COVID-19, scientists and students alike moved from hallway discussions and group debates to working in isolation and participating in online classes. Academic and professional communities around the world have experienced significant cancellations of critical in-person events, including a number of scientific meetings. The University of Arizona Department of Geosciences 48th annual conference, GeoDaze, was no exception. GeoDaze was originally scheduled for April 2020, but all in-person university events were cancelled a few weeks prior. As organizers of the conference, we were initially devastated that we would not see all of our hard work come to fruition this year. Within a few days of the cancellation, our heartbreak transitioned to problem solving as we decided to redevelop the conference into an innovative virtual event. Surprisingly, there were several silver linings in the online conference that enhanced the event for attendees. As GeoDaze concluded, we wondered: What can we learn from the unprecedented pandemic lockdown to enhance scientific meeting experiences? Here we outline the benefits of transitioning a conference to an entirely virtual format, and we argue that some elements of online meetings are worth incorporating into a post– COVID-19 world. GeoDaze is an annual university event inaugurated in 1972 that provides graduate and undergraduate students with the opportunity to present their latest geoscience research to the community. The entirely student-run conference draws in university alumni and geoscientists from industry, government, and academia. The ability for students to interact with professionals provides opportunities for career and academic growth through collaboration and guidance. This event often serves as the first opportunity for students to publicly present research, so there was a sense of urgency to maintain the annual tradition despite being met with initial hesitation and concern about moving GeoDaze to an entirely virtual format for the first time in history.