GSMNP Science Colloquium 2024

Tune into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park 2024 Science Colloquium, presented by GSMNP and DLiA! Learn about a wide variety of scientific topics, new species of cave spiders and dusky salamanders, to wetlands along the Foothills Parkway, strategic use of social media to reduce overcrowding, and lots more, all from researchers working in the Smokies. All are welcome! Registration is free and open to the public.

Recorded talks from the 2024 Colloquium are now up on YouTube! You can find them
>>> here <<<

Location: Virtual via Zoom

Registration: Registration is free! Just follow the link below. You’ll receive a Zoom link over email that you can use to view the Colloquium on March 7th. The audience will also be able to ask questions of the speakers following their talks. Speakers DO NOT need to register and will receive Zoom link via email.

Schedule and abstracts: The schedule below and the linked PDF will be updated with any changes to talk times or talk information. Check back for the most up-to-date version.

Information for presenters

Submit a talk

Call for submissions: We welcome you to submit a presentation about your research that is either actively taking place in Great Smoky Mountains National Park or that is of significance to the Smokies, and that is at a stage in analysis where a full picture of the research can be presented. Note: due to time constraints, we may not be able to fit all submitted talks. Paul Super will be contacting potential presenters via email about submitting a presentation.

Important dates

• Friday, February 2nd – deadline to submit talk information to Paul Super (paul_super@nps.gov): (1) final title, (2) abstract, and (3) names and affiliations of the presenter and co-authors
• Week of February 5th – presenters will receive a tentative schedule and can OK their timeslot before the schedule is posted on this page
• Week of February 19th – presenters will receive a Zoom Webinar invitation via email; meeting registration will be available here for non-presenter attendees

Helpful information

Conference format: The Colloquium will be held virtually via Zoom’s Webinar platform. Presenters will be set as “panelists” on the Webinar, meaning that they can do most of the normal functions of a Zoom Meeting (share video, audio, and screen). Audience members will be able to ask questions and we will help manage questions. We’ll send presenters more information about what to expect closer to the colloquium.

Time slots: Presentation slots will be around 20 minutes (including time for questions). We will send you a finalized schedule close to the event and will provide more details about the Q&A after each talk.

Presentation format: Slide decks can be in any format (speakers will share their screen via Zoom), however we recommend PowerPoint, PDF, Google Slides or Keynote in wide-format (16:9).

Know your audience: Please note that many in the audience will have advanced degrees, but few will have advanced degrees in your topic, so plan to provide a bit of explanation of technical jargon and stay away from acronyms.

Recording presentations: We plan to record presentations and upload them publicly to our YouTube channel as we’ve done the past few years (view last year’s recordings). Please let Paul Super know if you DO NOT want your presentation to be recorded.