This past weekend, I attended the Pacific Evolution and Ecology Conference at Bamfield, Marine Sciences centre. It was my first conference ever, and I can say with confidence now that it will not be my last.

The conference is a student-run event whose organization is rotated between UBC, SFU, and UVic students. It is composed of entirely students (no professors allowed!) from a wide range of topics and levels, from conservation to molecular ecology; PhD to undergraduate. As a consequence, the environment was extremely friendly and casual. There were no looming PI’s (not that their criticisms aren’t always appreciated!), the judges for the talks were our own peers, and everyone there wanted to be there. The weekend started off with two long boat rides and a couple of beers, and there was ample time to meet and get to know everyone. The conference itself lasted a whole day (8:30am to 4:00pm) and there was the traditional conference dance on Saturday evening. Then, there was a talk by Michael Hawkes before we set off for Vancouver on Sunday morning to return to our regularly scheduled lives.

It’s truly an amazing feeling to be surrounded by like-minded people who love what you love, and have the passion and drive to really make things happen. I listened to talks about saving seahorses (which are adorable, by the way), hummingbird flight dynamics, and how to model ecological data in better ways. It is inspiring to see how creative the people around you are. It pushes you to want to be inspiring too. Being able to see the sheer variety in talks and ideas makes you realize how lucky you are to be in a world that can facilitate this kind of thinking, and how we can work together to build up the information of the future. In cell developmental terms, it’s like being near a million different enhancers. You’re working on your stuff and they are working on their stuff, but there are such beautiful and complicated overlaps between your expression and theirs that it’s hard not to be in awe.