A 1.5-day workshop for early career faculty and researchers in combustion and reaction sciences will be held 15–16 March 2025 in Boston, MA, immediately prior to the 14th US National Combustion Meeting.
This workshop will bring together junior faculty doing research in combustion, fire, and related fields, to discuss cultural issues facing the community. Anyone interested in participating needs to apply; see Registration for details.
All participants in the workshop are expected to comply with its Code of Conduct, both during the workshop and in any communications associated with it before, during, or after the event itself.
This workshop follows from the 2017 NSF-funded workshop titled “Sustaining the combustion research community: ensuring the field doesn’t burn out” (Grant No. 1733968), held in April 2017 ahead of the U.S. National Meeting in College Park MD, as well as the 2019 NSF-funded workshop titled “Support for Workshop and Mentoring of Junior Researchers at the U.S. National Combustion Meeting” (Grant No. 1901570), held in March 2019 ahead of the U.S. National Meeting in Pasadena, CA, as well as the 2023 NSF-funded workship titled "Keeping the Fire Alive: Fostering a Sustainable Community in the Combustion Sciences" (Grant No. 2309905). The goals of these workshops included learning about and discussing future challenges in the field of combustion from the perspectives of early career researchers. Several topics were discussed, including topics related to the culture of the combustion community (attracting and retaining a diverse community, public engagement, hostile/confrontational climate, improving educational outcomes), early-career involvement within the Combustion Institute, and topics related to research (open publishing, multi-disciplinary collaboration, balancing fundamental and applied research). Each of these topic areas produced a series of action times, many of which have been implemented since the workshop.
The workshops resulted in several significant impacts on early-career researchers, including:
- Establishment of an early-career advisory board reporting to the executive committee of the Combustion Institute, whose membership includes a number of participants of the workshops (Michael Mueller; Jacqueline O'Connor; Nicole Labbe; Patton Allison; Alison Ferris).
- Public announcement of code of ethics by Prof. Arnaud Trouv{'e} at the opening of the 2017 U.S. National Meeting at the behest of members of the workshop. Similar announcements were made at the 2019 U.S. National Meeting, the 2023 U.S. National Meeting, and in regional section meetings.
- Nomination and subsequent election of past workshop participants onto Combustion Institute section boards, resulting in the following numbers of current board members: 10 in Western States, 3 in Central States, and 8 in Eastern States.
- Development of diversity and inclusion activities within the U.S. Sections.
- Workshops focusing on mentoring, diversity, and inclusion at both the Eastern and Western States Section meetings since Spring 2018.
- Several research collaborations have arisen from networking opportunities at the workshop, including coordinated CAREER proposals and others.
- Addition of new Education and Outreach colloquia in combustion-related meetings, including a WiPP track at the Combustion Symposium, as well an an Education related web page on the Combustion Institute website.
Additionally, the workshop created a close-knit community of early-career combustion researchers who have kept in touch since the event. Several scientific collaborations and friendships were forged at this meeting, which will undoubtedly enhance the quality of the field going forward.
Given the significant positive impacts of the first, second, and third workshops, we want to continue to build momentum and sustain a recurring workshop, tied with the biennial U.S. National Meeting, to continue to support early-career researchers and academics in the U.S. While progress has been made since the previous workshops, and momentum was picking up, the community has suffered several challenges in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, and there are still a number of areas where the community can continue to improve.
We thank the National Science Foundation for supporting the most recent workshop under grant CBET-2309905.
