Summary of ‘Networking Session led by the Women in Plant Biology Committee’ at Plant Biology 2021
This July, I attended the Plant Biology 2021 Worldwide Summit. Being a virtual event due to the pandemic, it was not quite what I expected for my first international conference, but I was excited to finally share my PhD research with a larger audience and to explore the range of fascinating plant science topics out there. The first day of symposia on the 19th July was immediately off to an exciting start: I was fortunate enough to present in one of the concurrent symposia, and I also attended my first-ever networking event.
The networking session led by the Women in Plant Biology Committee sounded appealing to me because it was less intimidating than general networking events aimed at a larger audience, and meeting other women in plant science sounded like fun. So, despite this event starting at 10pm where I am based in the UK, I was excited to see how this would work and made sure I didn’t miss it.
As I logged onto the Zoom meeting room, about 30 people appeared on my screen. We listened to a short introduction by the committee, and then were told how this next hour would work – we would be put into breakout rooms in random groups of 5, and would have 15 minutes in each room, for a total of three rounds. This seemed like quite an intense activity at the end of a long day, but the 45 minutes flew by.
In my first breakout room, I was happy to recognise one of the names as a PhD student who had asked me a question earlier during the Q&A for my talk, and it was nice to put a face to the name. Another woman also mentioned she had attended my talk, so the room immediately felt a bit familiar and it was great to see some people face-to-face, in a sense. We shared how we found the first day of the conference, and there was a good atmosphere while having a bit more of a relaxed conversation. We were joined by a member of the Women in Plant Biology committee and she told us a bit more about the work they do, such as organising talks and networking opportunities throughout the year. Then the fifteen minutes were up, and before I knew it I was in a room with four new faces.
Throughout these sessions, I met mostly PhD students and postdocs, but also a PI who I recognised from one of the symposia earlier in the day. I realised how small the world of plant science could be when I said that I work at the John Innes Centre, and one of the participants mentioned somebody we both knew. Two of the people in my room also realised they had met in a previous Plant Biology conference, which was great to see. In the second and third rounds, we went around and talked about each of our backgrounds and research, and it was motivating to hear about all the people and work out there, especially since I don’t normally see as much about work done in the US.
Despite the many benefits of virtual conferences like accessibility, the main aspect that is irreplaceable in this new format is the magic of spontaneous interactions that in-person conferences bring. However, I think this networking event worked surprisingly well by putting people into small groups that encourage conversation, perhaps even more so than if you were left to your own devices to wander around a room. As I haven’t been to any in-person conference networking events, I don’t really have anything to compare it to, but this event definitely gave me a warm welcome into the global plant science community. I think this kind of virtual networking event is still a difficult medium for striking up useful conversations about research and collaborations because of its compactness, but the awareness it brings could stimulate further contact, and it added that touch of community feeling that is so hard to translate to a virtual conference. It made me come out of my first day feeling like there were other people around, rather than just me sitting alone in front of a laptop.
