The Schoodic Education and Research Center will host the third annual Acadia National Park Science Symposium, highlighting science taking place in and beyond the park boundary. This year it will be held in conjunction with Convergence 2013 – Landscape-Level Conservation in Down East Maine: Collaborating for Strategic Effectiveness. Together, these events will provide a forum to hear about science taking place in the region and a venue to interact and build collaborations with scientists, conservationists, students, park staff, and others working in a range of fields.

Both events will take place at the Schoodic Education and Research Center, located in the Schoodic Peninsula section of Acadia National Park in Winter Harbor, Maine. The Science Symposium will be held on Tuesday, October 22 and Convergence 2013 will be held on Wednesday, October 23.

To facilitate interactions and discussion, the Science Symposium will feature poster sessions with a small number of invited oral presentations. If you would like to present a poster or simply attend the Science Symposium or Convergence 2013, please register by WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2. Space is limited and will be awarded on a first come-first serve basis, so please register as early as possible. You can register online.

We welcome and encourage posters from a wide range of disciplines, including natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities–e.g., ecology, geology, human behavior, education, economics, cultural history, etc.
Featured speakers at the Science Symposium:

• Ian Billick, Director, Rocky Mountain Biological Lab
• Richard Primack, Professor, Boston University
• Linda Silka, Director of the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center, University of Maine
• Phil Taylor, Professor, Acadia University

Evening lecture after the Science Symposium:

• Darron Collins, President, College of the Atlantic

Keynote speaker at Convergence 2013:

• James Levitt, Director of the Program on Conservation Innovation, Harvard Forest, Harvard University

These meetings are sponsored by the Schoodic Institute, National Park Service, and Down East Research and Education Network (DEREN). The Schoodic Education and Research Center is managed jointly by Schoodic Institute and National Park Service. DEREN is a collaborative network of land trusts, universities, conservation nonprofits, and government agencies.

Science Symposium Planning Committee

• John Anderson – College of the Atlantic 
• Jane Disney – Mount Desert Island Biological Lab 
• Ivan Fernandez – University of Maine 
• Tom Huntington – U.S. Geological Survey 
• David Manski – National Park Service, Acadia National Park 
• Abe Miller-Rushing – National Park Service, Schoodic Education and Research Center
• Michael Soukup – Schoodic Institute

Convergence 2013 Planning Committee

• Barbara Arter – Down East Research and Education Network
• Yvonne Davis – Schoodic Institute
• Lisa Heyward – Frenchman Bay Conservancy
• Tora Johnson – University of Maine-Machias
• Jim Levitt – Harvard Forest, Harvard University
• Abe Miller-Rushing – National Park Service, Schoodic Education and Research Center