Achievement

In May 2010, students in the Buffalo GIScience IGERT hosted a 3-day conference entitled "Representing Reality: Imagery in the Cognitive, Social and Natural Sciences." The conference was organized by four IGERT trainees: Colleen Bronner, Amy Frazier, Andrew Trgovac, and Heath Robinson. More than 60 people, from 6 IGERT programs and 20 US Universities, participated in the conference, which brought together researchers from a variety of disciplines, including geography, geology, imaging science, social media, environmental engineering, industrial engineering, biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, anthropology, archaeology, media arts, architecture, and American studies. The trainees who ran the conference learned not only how to be successful in organizing a conference, but also how to balance the high demand of their studies with service-related activities, a skill that will be useful in the future as they take on the academic duties and service tasks of a professor.