2012 Annual Meeting of the UK Regional Student Chapter of the Society for Marine Mammalogy: University of St Andrews, 1st-3rd February 2012

We would like to announce that the annual meeting of the UK Regional Student Chapter of the Society for Marine Mammalogy will be held at the Sea Mammal Research Unit, University of St Andrews from the 1st to the 3rd of February 2012.  An Icebreaker will be held on the evening of the 31st of January.

We encourage all students registered in Universities across the UK and Ireland that are interested in marine mammal research to attend. The atmosphere of the conference is relatively informal, giving students a platform to discuss their research with other students and researchers.  

Postgraduate students are invited to submit abstracts for oral presentations.  For planning purposes, we have divided presentations into 5-10 minute and 15-20 minute slots.  We encourage new postgraduate students to talk about their future research plans using the 5-10 minute slots and for those further along in their studies to present for 15-20 minutes. Undergraduates with an interest in the field are also welcome to attend.  The talks traditionally vary in content: from talks by new students discussing their future plans or the basis of their project, to students whose Ph.D.’s are near completion.  Our guest speakers include Dr Luke Rendell (EU Postdoctoral Research Fellow at St Andrews University) and Dr Gordon Hastie (Senior Research Scientist at SMRU Ltd and the Scottish Oceans Institute), and the subject of a workshop will be announced nearer the time. Please visit our website for updates (www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~ukrscgrp/).  The final deadline for presentation abstracts (max 300 words) will be the 5th of January 2012.

There is no registration fee and you don’t need to be an existing member of the Chapter – you can register for the Chapter at the same time as registering for the conference.  Registration forms can be downloaded from our website at www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~ukrscgrp/.  Please submit your registration form by e-mail attachment to ukrsc@st-andrews.ac.uk before the 5th of January 2012.  

For those members traveling to St Andrews, we will provide a list of accommodation options before the Christmas holidays, and directions to St Andrews will be available on our website soon. 

If you have any further questions regarding the meeting, please don't hesitate to get in touch (ukrsc@st-andrews.ac.uk).

Hope to see you all in St Andrews in Feburary,

With best wishes,

The committee of the UK Regional Student Chapter for the Society for Marine Mammalogy

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