The Spring 2020 STEEP Colloquium on PFAS is in full swing — virtually! The trainees have heard from STEEP Director Rainer Lohmann about the PFAS ‘essentiality’ concept, learned about FAIR data principles from the STEEP data specialist Harrison Dekker and trainee Yana Hrytsenko, discussed effective mentoring with Project 3 engineering professor Geoff Bothun, and learned teaching strategies from Associate Dean of the URI Graduate School, Brenton DeBoef. Later in the semester, the Colloquium will hear from the Community Engagement Core, Research Translation Core, and all four project heads on research updates. The Colloquium will also include external guest speakers whose virtual presentations are currently being coordinated by STEEP trainees Maya Morales-McDevitt and Emily Kaye.

The Training Core is also actively engaged in planning a special trainee-organized session on the first day of the FLUOROS 2020 conference. STEEP trainees Alicia Crisalli (URI) and Heidi Pickard (Harvard) have been named as co-chairs for this session which will include a lunch discussion with senior scientists focused on career development, a panel of invited experts who will speak on rising to meet the PFAS crisis and the social justice implications of PFAS contamination, a talk by a Cape Cod First Nation representative, and a session highlighting trainee and graduate student PFAS research. Additionally, STEEP trainees Jitka Becanova and Emily Kaye, have also been named as co-chairs for the poster sessions that will take place throughout FLUOROS.