APECS Webinars

Taking a Leap of Faith - Careers Outside Academia
- At the early stages of being a mid-career person, Jenny shares the journey of going through the process of graduate school, landing that highly sought-after tenure track position, and then realizing that was not what she wanted to do. She shares the lessons she learned during the transition from leaving academia to pursue the creation of APECS - one of the most important legacies of the International Polar Year.

Presenter: Jenny Baeseman - Director, Association of Polar Early Career Scientists

Jenny been interested in life in streams starting with her childhood on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. Her training includes a B.S. in Water Chemistry from the University of WI - Stevens Point, M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota, a Ph.D. also in Civil Engineering with an environmental emphasis from the University of Colorado, and postdoctoral training in geosciences at Princeton University. During her training, she has spent 3 summer seasons in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica and has a deep appreciation and interest in the Polar Regions.

Jenny began working with the International Polar Year (IPY) in the summer of 2005. While working as an Assistant Professor in Biological Science, she became the co-chair of the IPY Tertiary Education Committee and the founding Director for the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS), one of the major legacy programs of the IPY. One of her main objectives for the organization is to help young researchers combine their interests in interdisciplinary polar science with interests in education and outreach and professional development activities. She began serving as the Director of APECS in 2007, when the Directorate was hosted at the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) at the University of Alaska – Fairbanks, where she currently an affiliate assistant research professor. The University of Tromsø, and the Norwegian Research Council are now hosting the APECS Directorate Office, and Jenny is happy to be living in Tromsø, the “Paris of the North”.

One of Jenny's personal goals is to make sure everyone she meets knows that polar bears don't eat penguins - as they live in different polar regions.

This video is part of the International Polar Year (IPY) Early Career Research Symposium held in Victoria, BC, Canada from 4-8 December 2009. The event was a career development workshop that brought 100 international young Arctic and Antarctic researchers and mentors together for a series of career development training sessions to develop professional skills, work with senior mentors, and develop international and interdisciplinary collaborations.