Who is this for?

We are writing this for everyone, but particularly first-time meeting attendees and other early-career researchers.

What is the point?

The point of creating a document like this is to lower barriers to entry in our research community. (A secondary goal is to help create the kind of community we are excited and proud to support.) By proactively answering common questions and codifying hidden curriculum associated with the meeting, we aim to reduce the stress and increase the value of attending.

Technical program

The schedule for the entire meeting is outlined in the Agenda, but the specific locations, links to talk titles and abstracts, and author index are contained in the Technical Program.

This is a “single-track” meeting, which means that there is only one activity happening at a time that everyone is welcome to attend. There are several types of activities, summarized below.

• Plenary (sometimes called a “keynote”): this is an invited presentation from a leading researcher in the field; the talk will generally be higher-level / more accessible than the typical talk associated with a paper accepted for publication at the meeting. Attending the presentation and discussing afterward is highly encouraged!
• Oral session: this will consist of a sequence of presentations by authors of accepted papers, each scheduled to last ~12min with a couple minutes allotted for questions from the audience; a good exercise during a talk is to try thinking of three questions you could ask the presenter – consider asking one of them after the talk!
• Interactive session: this will consist of ~30min worth of “lightning talks” followed by a ~1hr “poster session” by authors of accepted papers; as the name suggests, this format encourages and facilitates interaction better than an oral session; similar to the oral session, a good exercise would be to think of a question for the presenter during their lightning talk and then asking them while they are at their poster!
• CPHS Fellows: this is a special session in which our Fellows will give ~1–2min “spotlight talks” to introduce themselves to the community and highlight any accepted paper they co-authored or are presenting at the meeting.

Social program

Since science is a sociological phenomenon, the actual point of participating in a scientific meeting is to interact with a particular community of researchers. If this is a surprising observation, consider the fact that all of the ideas are already out there – instantly disseminate-able on arXiv, social media, personal websites, electronic mail et al.

With that in mind, and acknowledging that even researchers are corporeal beings that benefit from intermittent injections of calories and caffeine, the technical program may be punctuated by a sequence of Coffee Breaks, a Reception, and/or a Banquet as outlined in the agenda. These social activities provide excellent opportunities to take care of yourself – grab food or drink, stretch, check in with folks back home, etc. – but they also provide ample opportunities to connect with your colleagues, both new and familiar.

Community norms

Code of conduct

This conference (indeed, any scientific meeting worth attending) commits to providing an experience for all participants that is free from harassment, bullying, and discrimination, as well as inappropriate behavior that interferes with anyone’s ability to participate fully in the meeting.

If you experience or observe any behavior that violates this code of conduct, please contact DEI Chair [TODO] and/or General Chair [TODO].

Goals for attendance

The primary goal of the meeting organizers is to create a space that supports the free exchange of ideas and professional development of all participants.

Your goals in attending the meeting may include any or all of the following:

• catch up with colleagues or collaborators you already know;
• meet new colleagues and explore future collaborations;
• be exposed to and learn about state-of-the-art methods and results in your field;
• present, advertise, or disseminate your own research ideas to the community;
• learn about career opportunities like internships, jobs, fellowships, research positions.

Whatever your goals are, we encourage you to be deliberate and proactive in pursuing them.

How to participate

Even supposing you adopt our view that scientific meetings like this exist primarily to facilitate interaction between a community of researchers, that observation still leaves many questions unanswered: how should one interact with the community? What interactions are welcomed and encouraged? What interactions are unwelcome or discouraged?

While we cannot hope to provide an exhaustive account of anticipated interpersonal dynamics, we can provide general guidance to help everyone have positive and productive experiences.

encouraged (with parenthetical caveats):

• introduce yourself to people, particularly during the social program activities and interactive sessions in the technical program (though don’t waylay someone on their way to the bathroom or immediately before they are scheduled to give a presentation);
• have a ~30 second “elevator pitch” pre-prepared to respond when people ask what you work on and/or why you are attending the meeting (just be careful not to let the “elevator pitch” drone on for multiple minutes, and try to reciprocate by asking them the same);
• engage with people at multiple stages of their career, not just in your cohort (though you will likely find people at a similar stage as you to be more receptive and engaging);
• reach out to people before, during, and after the meeting via email to request or suggest connecting synchronously (though be understanding if they don’t reply promptly, as travel can be a major disruption to someone’s routine, and they may have multiple trips scheduled back-to-back);
• ask people what their plans are for dinner (note that dinner is not provided on either evening of the meeting) and/or ask a gathering group if there is room to join them (though be respectful if they demur, as they may have a reservation or other constraint that prevents them from inviting you).

discouraged (with parenthetical alternatives):

• pointing out errors in public settings like oral or interactive sessions (you might be wrong! better to follow up 1-on-1, either in-person or via email; if you absolutely must address a perceived error, try posing a question rather than making an assertion);
• being dismissive of or making value judgements about anyone’s research topic, method, result, field, paradigm, etc. (all research contributes to scientific progress, and judging the value of any particular contribution in any particular time period is extremely fraught);
• going over the time allotted for your presentation, speaking out of turn, or otherwise violating instructions from a session moderator (though feel free to keep your hand raised even after a moderator indicates there is no more time – they may make an exception if you respectfully request the opportunity to ask a burning question);
• consuming alcohol or other recreational substances to excess, as this can impair your judgment and impede your ability to interact respectfully (also, do not pressure others or succumb to pressure by others to consume food, drink, or substances you don’t want).

Dress code

There is no formal dress code for this (or most) scientific meeting(s). The best guidance is to wear clothes that help you feel comfortable and confident while interacting with your colleagues. But since that guidance is vague and doesn’t help first-time meeting attendees, some specific thoughts are provided below.

Most attendees will dress “up”, i.e. wear more formal or professional clothes than they do in their day jobs as researchers. It is more common to “overdress” than “underdress”. With that said, it is not particularly common to wear something as formal as a full suit and tie (though suit jackets or blazers without ties are common, as are collared shirts with ties but no jacket).

If your goal is to “blend in”, a skirt or slacks (not jeans) with a blouse or collared shirt (not a T-shirt) and dress shoes / flats / boots (not sneakers or sandals) are good choices.

However, if your goal is to “stand out”, feel free to express yourself with your attire. Do not feel obligated to cover tattoos or remove piercings. Again, the best guidance is to dress for your comfort and confidence. People come to these meetings primarily to interact with other people and their ideas; everything else is secondary.

After the meeting

You might find it worthwhile to dedicate some time after you return from the meeting to reflect on what you learned, follow up on interesting ideas, and share thoughts with your colleagues.

Beyond reading papers from the meeting and corresponding with people you met, you might consider giving a “debrief” presentation to one or more research groups you are affiliated with back at your home institution. This can be a useful exercise to help you organize your thoughts and experiences, and any information you disseminate will be tremendously valuable to your colleagues who did not have the privilege of attending the meeting.

Final thoughts

Attending a scientific meeting can be a LOT – you are disrupting routines (e.g. sleep, meals, exercise), leaving your support network of family and/or friends, changing timezones, being exposed to a huge amount of information, interacting with a dizzying array of new people, etc.

Don’t be surprised (and definitely don’t feel bad) if you find yourself overwhelmed or exhausted, either during or after the meeting. This is normal – meeting veterans have just developed strategies to endure the overwhelm and manage their exhaustion.

Feel free to take breaks when and as you need them – no one is taking attendance. (If anyone asks why you were absent, a convenient excuse is that you had to join a zoom meeting).

Authors

This handbook was created for CPHS 2022 by Momona Yamagami and Sam Burden.

License

You are welcome to share and adapt this handbook using the Creative Commons v3.0 license.