Frequently Asked Questions

Why should I become an APECS Member?
Worldwide, many early career polar researchers work in isolation – in our institutes as well as our fieldwork. Becoming an APECS member connects you into our membership network of researchers and educators with similar interests, passions and experiences. Moreover, it gives you access to job vacancies and other opportunities from around the globe and from a variety of institutions and organizations. We have many wonderful advisory committee members – established senior scientists - who are happy to help with career advice or put you in contact with others who can help you with various questions. APECS will be sponsoring a number of workshops and works closely with the International Polar Year office to find financial support to ensure and increase early career participation in all IPY events. From time to time opportunities arise for early career representatives at science planning activities and other events – being a member allows you access to those opportunities to help build an international and interdisciplinary polar career. Being a member lets you search the membership database to find new colleagues or email people questions you might have on various science topics, and to develop new professional contacts and friendships. APECS has many activities and resources that could use your help and that will simultaneously advance your career. See our Get Involved section for more details.

As an international organization, the major connecting point for our organization is our website. Being an APECS member gives you access to resources that will be helpful for your career development, along the continuum of undergraduate through to successful polar researcher. Our discussion board allows you to interact with the larger community regarding a variety of issues such as questions regarding laboratory procedures, finding out where to get polar experience, sharing stories and tips and discussing recent publications. You also have access to a variety of RSS feeds regarding polar research all in one place – from recent news stories to the latest polar related Science paper. We have a database of polar related job openings and several RSS feeds from other job databases. One of the most useful benefits of membership is the membership database itself. Using this tool can help you find other people in your field asking similar questions, allowing you to meet new international colleagues, or find additional resources to help your research and career development.

Being an APECS member also gives you access to the many early career workshops and meetings that will be held in the coming months and years, as well as opportunities to serve on science planning and conference organizing committees as the voice of early career polar researchers. The APECS meetings allow rare face-to-face contact with those involved in the field, which is both professionally and personally rewarding. Each of these workshops will have a different focus, from very technical and technique specific to broad career development strategies. Many of these workshops will have limited openings, and being an active APECS member will give you higher priority in the application process.

How do I become a member of APECS?
To sign up to become a member of APECS, go to the discussion forum on the APECS website: http://arcticportal.org/apecs/forum and click on the Register link under the APECS logo. This will take you through the registration process where you will be asked to enter your email address and other information. We only use the email address to send you announcements from time to time. Your information can only be accessed by other members for the purposes of finding new collaborators, networking and learning more about other polar research projects. The more information you enter, the more people will be exposed to your work. If you have troubles, please contact our Chief Information Officer, Peter DiFiorie (pdifiore at Princeton.EDU).

I want to get involved in APECS. What is there to do, and how to I get started?
There are lots of things you can do within APECS and we are always looking for excited people with great ideas. Start by visiting our “Get Involved” section and checking out some of the working groups. There are also a number of national committees you can check out. If your country does not have a national APECS group and you would like to start one, visit the APECS National Committees page for information. If there are specific things you would like to help with, work on, or like to see APECS doing, please contact any one of the APECS Council members.

I am really interested in the Antarctic/Arctic. How do I get a job or volunteer position to go there?
This is probably the most common question we get. We personally understand the intrigue the polar regions have and why people want to go, and also that very few have this opportunity. The answer is a not an easy one. There are several ways you can get to the Poles; it all depends on your interest in being there. If you are interested in conducting research, we recommend looking at the National Funding agencies in your country and see what types of polar research they facilitate. You can then contact the principle investigators of these projects. If you want to undertake undergraduate or graduate research, you can use a similar process to investigate universities in your country or abroad and find a place that matches your interests. Also, keep an eye on our job vacancies page (http://arcticportal.org/root/home/apecs/jobs-/-opportunities). If you are looking for a science support type of job, there are several countries that operate research stations and hire people to manage and run the stations – you can find those on our links page. There are a number of tourism companies that operate in the polar regions and they are always looking for knowledgeable people to work for them. International Antarctic Tourism Association (http://www.iaato.org/) has a lot of great information and the Sustainable Arctic Tourism group does as well (http://www.arctictourism.net).

I have not been involved in polar research before, where do I start?
There are lots of great websites with information on current polar research. Check out our links page for some of these. Contact local Colleges, Universities, and Research Institutes, or visit their webpage to learn about any polar research programs they may have. We also recommend looking at your country’s science funding programs for solicitations on issues that interest you and talking to some of the investigators with funded projects that are interesting to you. You can also search our membership database to find new collaborators that you would be interested to work with and/ or develop new ideas with.

I was reading some polar science material and came across a bunch of acronyms I didn’t understand. Help?
There are definitely a lot of acronyms in polar science, which can get very confusing. We are in the process of creating a database where you will be able to search to find what the acronym stands for and what the organization/project is about, including a link to their website. Until then, you might want to try the IASC (International Arctic Science Committee) website; they have a nice list for Arctic acronyms (http://arcticportal.org/iasc/services/polar-acronyms) and the SCAR (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research) for an Antarctic List http://www.scar.org/information/acronyms/.

I have been asked to give an outreach presentation on polar science. Can you help?
Outreach is a very important part of APECS and we are here to help. Please visit out Education and Outreach Page where you will find links to several sites that will be helpful for you as well as materials and presentations given by other early career polar researchers: http://arcticportal.org/apecs/education--outreach