The 43rd annual Pacific Ecology & Evolution Conference (PEEC) took place March 19th and 20th, 2022 in downtown Victoria, BC. PEEC is a conference put on by grad students for grad students, giving early career scientists a chance to connect with each other and share their research.
I actually attended PEEC back in 2018 in Bamfield, BC, to present my undergraduate honours research in the poster session. The weekend was a whirlwind of travel from Kamloops to Bamfield, and absolutely packed with engaging activities, excellent science, and a whole lot of fun.
Above: a few highlights from PEEC 2018 in Bamfield, BC.
This year, it was exciting to be back but presenting my masters' work (an opportunity I did not anticipate finding myself pursuing back in 2018, when I was pretty sure I'd never be going back to grad school - but I'm glad I was wrong about that). I presented a three-minute talk on Saturday the 19th, in the "Deep Ecology & Other Ways of Knowing" session. It was a pleasure to meet other ecology students from Universities across western Canada, conducting interesting research all over the world. We also heard from some fantastic scholars and mentors during the keynote address and plenary session. The workshops were useful and engaging, put on by fellow students (I attended a study maps in QGIS workshop on Saturday and a marine mammal ID workshop on Sunday). I was so happy to be accompanied for the weekend by my lab mate and friend, Becca. She ended up placing 3rd over the entire conference for her three-minute talk on her proposed MSc work. Overall the conference was a huge success and I can't commend the organizing committee enough for their fantastic work on this year's PEEC!
