In March, the Gulf Research Program (GRP) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held its third annual Gulf Scholars Program Conference on the University of South Alabama campus in Mobile, Alabama. Over 170 students, faculty and staff from the 24 Gulf Scholar Program campuses were in attendance, coming together to connect with, inspire, and learn from one another.

“The Gulf Scholar Program conference brings together bright minds from institutions across the Gulf and asks them to collaborate and learn from one another as they seek to address challenges that affect their communities," said Karena Mary Mothershed, program director of the GRP’s board on gulf education and engagement. “Bringing together these scholars, you could really feel the energy in the room and the determination, passion, and creativity of the students was inspiring.”  

In addition to a range of plenary and breakout sessions, participants engaged in several interactive activities that helped students make new connections with the Gulf region.

Mapping the Gulf Scholars Network: Institutions, Interests & Impact

During the conference, attendees engaged in an activity to visualize the Gulf Scholars Program network on a physical map of the Gulf region, including the locations of the Gulf Scholar institutions. Participants included information on their Gulf-related interests and project areas as related to their connections to place and were encouraged to revisit the map throughout the conference to identify new collaborators with similar interest areas.

Dozens of attendees mapped themselves onto the Gulf network. Gulf interest areas were incredibly broad ranging, including sustainability and conservation, human-environment interactions, cultural preservation and climate resilience, place-based community engagement and education, and much more.

After mapping was complete, attendees participated in a gallery walk of the mapped network, exploring connections between their interests, projects, and impact areas with others that shared a similar focus.

Collage Poetry: Building Meaning One Phrase at a Time

The Gulf Scholars Program recognizes that bridging the humanities and scientific, engineering, and medical fields is essential to address the interdisciplinary challenges facing the Gulf region. In one breakout session, students were challenged to think critically about language, meaning, and communication as they engaged with a selection of short pieces by Gulf region poets and writers.

Students then collaborated with each other to exercise their own creative expression using language, text, and images. Students combined phrases from published works with cut-out images and their own writing or drawing to render new collaged poems that speak to their personal current concerns and future aspirations.

Wrong Answers Only

Attendees rounded out the first day of the conference with Wrong Answers Only, a science comedy game show produced by LabX, a public engagement program at the National Academy of Sciences, featuring comedic guests who play games and quizzes while learning about exciting research with the help of a scientific expert.

Dr. Gabriel de Oliveira, an Assistant Professor in the Stokes School of Marine and Environmental Sciences at the University of South Alabama and a Gulf Research Program Early-Career Research Fellow, joined host Chris Duffy and an incredible panel of comedians for laughter and learning as they discussed Dr. De Oliveira’s research in the Amazon and its applications to help protect the largest river delta and wetlands in Alabama.

Other conference highlights included:

• 18 student presentations and over 40 student posters on a range of Gulf-related topics such as sea turtle conservation, oral history in Pensacola, revitalizing Biloxi’s main street, addressing food insecurity in the Gulf, mangrove research and restoration, and much more.

• A keynote presentation and panel, Towards a Sustainable Gulf Coast: Looking Back and Moving Forward 15 Years after the Deepwater Horizon Disaster, with Jo Bonner, University of South Alabama President and former U.S. Congressman.

• Student breakout sessions which provided students with opportunities to work with their peers across institutions and disciplines to brainstorm solutions to interdisciplinary Gulf challenges, share their interests and impact projects, and meet with early career professionals and graduate students for mentoring and networking roundtables.

• Faculty sessions which centered on Gulf Scholar Program courses, program design, administration, publications, and evaluation.

• Dr. Maria Wallace, Professor of STEMM Education at the University of Southern Mississippi and one of the GRP’s Early-Career Research Fellows, led a plenary session on “Perspective Taking for Transformative Change.”

• Closing remarks were given by four students summarizing their key take-aways from the conference.

Throughout the conference, participants expressed how rewarding it was to come together to foster thoughtful conversations, make unexpected connections, and strengthen networks. As the scholars return to their home institutions, the Gulf Scholars Program continues to support the next generation of leaders as they embrace the Gulf region as a place to live, learn, and thrive.